A Different Perspective Official Podcast

God has a habit of wanting to speak right into the circumstances that we’re travelling through here and now; the very issues that we each face in our everyday lives. Everything from dealing with difficult people … to discovering how God speaks to us; from overcoming stress … to discovering your God-given gifts and walking in the calling that God has placed on your life And that’s what these daily 10 minute A Different Perspective messages are all about.

Being Born Again // Dying to Live, Part 4 04/03/2025

Being Born Again // Dying to Live, Part 4 We’ve all made mistakes in life. I have. You have. Imagine, imagine if we could have another crack. You know, a new life with the slate wiped clean. This week so far, we’ve been looking at the paradoxes in life. In particular, how on the one hand everything tells us we should put ourselves first, that we’re the centre of the universe, but on the other hand, the bleak reality of that kind of approach, well it just doesn’t work. People are just dying to have a great life but so often they focus on the short-term cost and the changes they need to make to have that life. In a sense, well we have to die to live. We have to bite the bullet in the short term to get the value and the quality in the medium and longer terms. But what if you and I could have new start? What if the slate could be wiped clean? What if you could have a new life? What if "Born Again" weren’t just some religious nut kind of cliché? What if "Born Again" were new reality in your life? Yesterday if you joined me, I mentioned that I recently celebrated my 60th birthday. So 60 years ago, Berni was born yesterday, which means today 47 years ago, I was one day old. I literally had my whole life ahead of me. What if … what if we have a new start, knowing everything we know now? Wouldn’t that be cool? Of course, hope as we may, we just can’t turn the clock back. But what we can do, is we can admit that some things in our lives aren’t working, something’s missing, something’s not right and we can decide to do something about it. I like the fact that Jesus is an edgy, profound kind of guy. He cuts through all the froth and bubble and goes straight to the point. He was trying to explain to his disciples, why He had to go to the cross and die. Now for his Disciples who have been wandering around at the Jesus bible school for the last three-and-a-half years with him, and they’ve been watching him zap lepers and heal them, and they’ve been watching him cast demons out of people, and they’ve been watching Him give sight to the blind. For Jesus to say to them, ‘Well guys, umm time’s come, I’m going to be crucified next Friday’, that’s not a very palatable outcome to the Disciples, it’s scary, it’s confusing. How do you explain that to the Disciples? Well this is how Jesus explained it, he said: I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed, but if it dies it produces many seeds. The person who loves their lives will lose it but if you’re prepared to lose your life in this world, you’ll have eternal life. Whenever Jesus says, "I tell you the truth", it’s like He’s grabbing us by the shoulders and saying, "Wake up, this is really important, listen to me, I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it just remains a single seed but if it dies it produces many seeds. The person who loves their life will lose it but if you’re prepared to lose your life in this world, you’ll have eternal life." It’s a great picture, most of these people knew what kernels of wheat looked like, even if we only ever see them once they’ve been crunched up in the supermarket inside a loaf of bread, right. These people knew what seeds looked like, what wheat looked like, they probably touched it and walked through the fields and were close to it. If you live in a rural community maybe it’s the same for you, it’s not for me. And He was saying, "Look a seed can’t grow into a new plant until it dies", and that’s true. If you’ve ever tried to take an apple seed, when you were a little kid, eat the apple, take the seed, plant it in the ground, wait for something to come out … nothing comes out because first, that seed has to dry up and shrivel up and in a sense die before it can become an apple tree. What’s that mean for you and me in our lives? Yesterday if you were with us, and if you weren’t you can listen to that program again online at anytime, just have a listen. But what we were talking about was the fact that many people have this template dropped on their head that says, "Me, me, me, me. I am in the centre of the universe and everything else has to revolve around me and has to come my way and has to flow into me." This dying that Jesus talks about is inverting that, this dying says "I’m no longer at the centre of the universe, no, no, God – Jesus is at the centre of my universe." That’s a big transition, that is a big step, that means abdicating the flow, that means subjecting ourselves to God, to Jesus. And then Jesus says, "Take up your cross, go on, pick up your cross, come follow me." Maybe again, a cross is just a little gold thing that hangs around people’s necks. When he was saying it, crosses were things that people got nailed to, and died gruesome deaths. He was saying, "be prepared to die." In fact, Jesus even said, "Take up your cross daily, die daily, die every day, put yourself last and Me first, follow me." It is so easy to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, it’s so easy to believe that God has done this but when we believe in Jesus it changes what we do, it changes who we are, it changes our behaviour, it sets us free from some of this stuff in our life that we know isn’t working. But we hang on to it because, I don’t know, we just hang onto it because it’s all we know. Take up your cross and follow me is not an intellectual choice, it is a life choice, it is a decision to lay down our lives day after day, after day and follow Jesus, in partnership with Jesus and say. "Jesus you know something, you are now in the driver’s seat of my life." I’m going where you’re taking me and I know there’s a cost, I know there are changes, I know there are lifestyle choices that I have to make in getting my life together but you are going to be the Lord of my life. The Apostle Paul writes in a letter to the Roman Church 2000 years ago, he says: If you confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and believe in your heart, you’ll be saved. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, not in an intellectual sense, not in a distance sense, in a real life sense, "Jesus is the Lord of my life". You look at all the paradoxes and contradictions in life; family and work, and relationships, and a sense of destiny, our spirituality. Things should be working but often they’re not. Even for people who’ve said I believe in Jesus in my head, but haven’t believed with their lives. Often it’s not, something’s not together, something’s broken … something’s missing. Is it time to say, "Jesus is my Lord"? Not a half-decision, not a part-decision, an all of me decision. Me, my life, my world view, my wealth, my behaviour, my feelings, my hopes, my dreams, every corner, every crevice, every part of me, I lay it all down at the foot of the cross and I’m going to die once and for all to this world and rise again a new person, a new life, a new start in Jesus Christ. Forgiven, made new, all the old things have passed away, everything is new, I wanna be "Born Again". And once we take that step, and my challenge for you today is, have you? Will you take that step? No matter who we are, where we are on our spiritual journey, there’s a cost, lay down everything, follow Jesus. /episode/index/show/32d04db5-1dff-4476-bc65-2e28e83b1760/id/35233225

My Birthday // Dying to Live, Part 3 04/02/2025

My Birthday // Dying to Live, Part 3 A few weeks ago, I celebrated one of those milestone birthdays. So what. We all have a birthday. Easy though to get self-absorbed about things – to imagine somehow that we’re at the centre of the universe. Easier it turns out, than many of us think. As I said, a few weeks ago, I celebrated one of those milestone birthdays ... 66 years since I breathed my first breath. So I was thinking … whoa, stop, don’t turn it off! I’m not going to talk about myself for the next ten minutes; I was just trying to make a point. You know those people in life who only ever talk about themselves? Their life, what’s going on in their world, they never stop. They never even think to ask you, “How are you going, what’s going on in your world, how are you feeling?” No, no, they're so utterly self absorbed it wouldn’t even enter their mind. Sure it’s my birthday today, that’s nice, happy birthday Berni, but sometime in the next three hundred and sixty five days you’re gong to have a birthday too. And it’s the same with everyone else that you and I know. Contrary to popular belief the universe does not revolve around you or me. Let me introduce you to a young polish astronomer called Nick. He came up with a radical theory, in fact so radical that he was branded a heretic by the church. Nick’s last name is Copernicus. Now young Nick, between about 1517 and 1530 wrote a treatise called, “On the Revolution of Celestial Spheres”. Up until then people basically believed that the earth was in the centre of the universe and that all the other heavenly bodies, all the stars and the sun and the moon, everything else revolved around the earth. And Copernicus thought about this and he looked at how the other planets were moving and he deduced that the sun was at the centre of our solar system, and that the earth was just one of the planets revolving around the sun. Now, a full century later in the ecclesiastical trial of Galileo, (that means that the church tried him for heresy) here’s another great scientist who believed in the Capernaum theory. They officially suppressed Copernicus’s idea that the earth wasn’t in the centre of the universe, that in fact the sun was in the centre of our solar system. So the church was geocentric, the earth is in the centre, and the scientists were heliocentric, the sun is in the centre and they were called heretics. Now, today any 7 year old kid knows that the earth revolves around the sun. It rotates on its axis, the axis is tilted at 23 ½ degrees, that’s why we have the seasons. But in the 16th and 17th Centuries that kind of thinking was heretical. "Berni, why the history lesson?" Because in a sense it’s exactly the same today. The more affluent a society becomes the more entrenched becomes the theory that I or you are in the centre of the universe. You challenge that; you say I don’t think it's working that well. You dare to suggest that there’s a God who sent His Son to die for you and me, and the world will call you a heretic. But we know that this self-centric thing doesn’t work any better than the earth-centric view of the universe explains the movement of all these bodies in the sky. Just doesn’t work! And people end up living a lie that is self absorbing. We talked about those people at the beginning of the program. You know the sort of people who only ever talk about themselves. We know it doesn’t work because they’re boring. You can’t stand hanging around those people for more than ten minutes. There’s a sea called the Dead Sea, and the reason that it’s called the Dead Sea is because it has the Jordan River flowing into it, but it doesn’t have any outflows, so all this water is flowing in, nothing flowing out. It’s seven times saltier than the ocean, its twenty seven per cent solid substances in the water. It supports no life whatsoever, none! Because for there to be life there needs to be an inflow and there needs to be an outflow. But unfortunately the Dead Sea only has an inflow, and the same is true of people. If you put yourself at the centre and expect everything to flow in there’s no life at all. That’s why! We’re not designed to be like the Dead Sea, it’s a paradox. The world’s saying put yourself at the centre let everything flow in, it doesn’t work! People are dying to live an exciting, people are dying to have a life that’s just worth living. We all want a great life, but in a sense we have to die to live, in a sense we have to accept that there’s got to be an out flow, that life has to be about things flowing out rather than things just flowing in. Jesus said, “Come to me, come to me and drink, come to me and drink this living water.” He wasn’t talking about the Dead Sea! And then he said: Out of your belly will run rivers of living water. Rivers! Not a trickle, not a stream, not one river, RIVERS of living water. Let me ask you something, is your life one of those lives where you try and pour stuff in, but you never give anything out and if it is how satisfying is that? How much, let me be really direct here, how much does your life represent the circumference of the Dead Sea? Where we expect everything to flow in, we’re not prepared to give anything out, we wonder, we wonder why life isn’t worth living. We wonder why this doesn’t support abundant life. Who or what is at the centre of your universe? Are you at the centre of your universe? Am I at the centre of my universe? Because if that’s the model that we have dumped on our head it’s how we live our life, it’s going to be like the Dead Sea. It’s not going to support abundant life, in fact it won’t support any life, it will be devoid of any satisfaction – that’s the paradox. You try and stuffing stuff in but it never satisfies. Are we at the centre of our universe or is God at the centre of our universe? There are people who will say, “Berni, you’re a loony, you know, talking about God in this day and age, come on!” God is no less real than the sun that the earth rotates around, and it doesn’t matter how much they tried to suppress Copernicus' theory, it doesn’t matter how much they said he was a heretic, it doesn’t matter how much they gave Galileo a hard time for believing it – it was still true. The sun is at the centre of our solar system and we are one of the planets that revolve around us. God has a Son … God has a Son called Jesus and it doesn’t matter how much people say, “Oh yeah that’s all old fashioned, I’m not going to listen to that, you’re a fundamentalist.” Doesn’t matter how much they say that, it doesn’t change the truth, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And when we look at this model of putting ourselves in the centre, when we look at the Dead Sea approach, does it work? Does it work, is it any better than someone who says that the earth is at the centre of the universe, just look around, does it work? Look around at the wars that are being fought, look around at the intolerance, look around at the greed and the selfishness, look around at the government systems that promote the notion of the only thing that matters in government is improving financial wellbeing. Does it work? Do we feel any better off? Who’s at the centre of your universe? Is it you or is it God? Is it you? Is it Jesus? Who do you want to have at the centre of your universe? What sort of life do you want to have? A Dead Sea life or the life that Jesus gives? The life that has rivers of living water flowing from God into you and from you out to other people? What sort of a life do you want? Tomorrow on "A Different Perspective" we’ll take a look at how to make the transition. /episode/index/show/32d04db5-1dff-4476-bc65-2e28e83b1760/id/35233210

My Way or the Highway // Dying to Live, Part 2 04/01/2025

My Way or the Highway // Dying to Live, Part 2 We all know people with that “my way or the highway” attitude. Delightful aren’t they? But truth be known, this a bit of that streak in each of us. Question is, what to do about it? Now we all know people in life who are the sort of people who dominate, they rule the roost, it has to be done their way, “It’s my way or the highway.” You know the sort; if you close your eyes you can just picture their angry faces. It’s all kind of wrapped up in an inherent selfishness, an underlying belief that, well, I’m at the centre of the universe, life is all about my needs, gratifying my senses. Those kinds of people, to tell you the truth, are right proper pains in the neck, but you know, if the real truth be known, there’s a bit of that in each of us, to a greater of lesser extent. We all want our own way, we all want it done my way. In fact, let's face it, there’s a “my way or the highway” streak in each one of us. The question is what to do about it? Our lives are all full of paradoxes, when you look at family or work or finances or leisure or what’s going on in our spirits or our behaviour. There are so many areas of paradox, so many areas where it should be satisfying, but it’s not, it should work but it’s not. We have so much yet something’s missing, and those contradictions, those paradoxes are like a tension inside. We can ignore them, we can hope that they’re going to go away but the reality is they don’t. Today and over the next few days, we’re going to confront and unpack some of those paradoxes, not in a preachy kind of way but together look at it from a different perspective. The "my way or the highway" attitude is one of those areas, and there are two manifestations of that. One of them is arrogance, the blatant self-centeredness, you know at home at work. To tell you the truth I see it in churches, we have a basic model in our heads that says, there’s the universe and I’m at the centre of the universe and everything is supposed to come my way and happen my way and gratify me. Theologians call that original sin. This is what they are talking about. I was on the bus the other day and I saw a little toddler, a two year old, right, and this two year old was rebelling against Dad because the two year old did not want to sit on this seat she wanted to sit on that seat. It is in our DNA. The other way that it pops up though is a little bit more subtle, it’s in ugly duckling syndrome. It's being the perpetual victim. I was having lunch with a man and he was talking about his wife, and he said look you know, her parents never supported her, they never went to any of her sporting events, or her concerts when she was at school. She was even in hospital recently and they didn’t come and visit her, isn’t it surprising that that woman has low self esteem? Not at all. And so people can end up with the sort of, "I’m an ongoing victim" attitude, "I’m going to be a victim, whether you like it or not." So whether it’s the road rage model or the perpetual victim model you don’t have to be Einstein to figure it out do you? Society says you can have it all, you can be it all as long as you buy this car or spend your money on this, and the two ways that that works out is the "me, me, me", thing or the "I’ll never make it, I’ll never be good enough." The paradox is that it doesn’t work, it should work but it doesn’t work. And we go on kidding ourselves, we have this template of who we are dropped on to our skulls right? And we ignore the consequences. I was recently buying a colour laser printer for home. I do a lot of work from home, send a lot of mail out and so I needed a colour printer. There were two brands, brand A and brand B. Brand A was the cheaper one it was only $1,600 up front. Brand B was over $3,000 up front, almost twice as much, which one do you buy? Well, brand A of course right, it's cheaper. Problem is it’s not just about the up front cost, with laser printers there are consumables. There’s the cartridges that go inside them and that costs a lot of money. You do a comparison between brand A and brand B and over three years printing 7,000 pages a month, which is roughly what I do, the difference in consumable costs is $18,000. $18,000 over the life of the printer. Which one do you buy? By the way the more expensive one which has the cheaper consumable cost also has better print quality, so which one do you buy? Do you buy the one that’s cheaper up front or do you worry about the cost and the quality over the life of the printer? It’s a bit of a no brainer isn’t it? Brand B is obviously the one that you want to buy. The immediate cost is not the only thing that’s important, it’s the impact over the total life, yet, we normally focus on the immediate, we normally focus on the up front. The immediate reaction would be: buy the cheaper one, instead of looking at the life, quality, and outcomes. And then we look at Jesus kind of suspiciously and we turn away from that stuff “follow me” because we go, “Well what’s it going to cost me, you know, what’s it going to cost?” I was talking to a friend who has an employee, this friend of mine is a Christian and the employee is not. And the employee said to him, “I could never become a Christian because I would have to change my lifestyle.” But what’s the cost of that lifestyle? What’s the cost over the life of the item of that lifestyle? And of course our lives are not like laser printers we use them for three years, we change them over and we get another one. Our lives are a one-off event on this planet. What’s the total cost? I know people who say, “I’m a Christian”, they believe that Jesus is the Son of God; they believe that Jesus died for them but it’s never dropped into their hearts. It’s never changed their behaviour, it’s never made a difference to how they live their lives because they’re still caring the old template around in their head, they’re still carrying the road rage Ronnie or the perpetual victim mentality round in their lives. Is that you? Are you struggling with this? Let me ask you, what’s it costing you? What’s it costing you in relationships? What’s it cost you in joy? What’s it costing you in the richness of your life, to be living like this? And is it time to take a stock, like I did with the printer and say “Am I focusing too much on the short term cost of change, am I just focusing on “I think it would be too hard to change, I don’t think I really want to change much?” Come on! You can pay $1,600 for brand A and pay next to $18,000 over the life, or you can pay $3,000 up front, get a payback within a few weeks and get better quality printing. Which one are you going to buy? Jesus said, “Come and follow me, come on, come and follow me, take up your cross.” Well that’s a picture of … there’s going to be a cost, there are going to be some things we are going to have to change. You know from $1,600 for brand A to $3,000 to brand B the difference is $1,400, right that’s the difference, that’s the difference in the up front cost and when we look at a life just mumbling along doing what we always do, compared to the other brand which is a life with Jesus, which is better quality, and a better outcome is there a choice really? Are we kidding ourselves that we just want to live the way we want to live? Or is it time to say, “I want the other brand, I know it’s going to cost me more up front, but I want the other brand.” It’s your decision, it’s your choice, I can’t make that decision for you. You have to count the cost. You need to look at your life and say “What’s it costing me, is it time, has the time come truly for me to put Jesus in the driving seat of my life?” Your choice. /episode/index/show/32d04db5-1dff-4476-bc65-2e28e83b1760/id/35233195

Paradox // Dying to Live, Part 1 03/31/2025

Paradox // Dying to Live, Part 1 Life is full of contradictions. Things that are supposed to work but don’t. And mostly, because they’re too hard to confront, or we’re too busy to bother, we ignore them…while all along they’re tearing us apart inside. Our day to day lives are cluttered, jam packed full of paradoxes, contradictions. Boy meets girl, would be somewhere at the top of the list. That chemistry, that excitement, that joy, it’s hard wired. They get married and a few years later all of a sudden it gets hard, so hard in fact, that between forty and fifty percent of those marriages end up in divorce. Paradox: silence can be deafening. Paradox: doing nothing, after a while, becomes exhausting. Paradox: shopping isn't satisfying. Paradox: …. The list just goes on, one after the other. But you see most times we don’t think about them, most times we're too busy. Life is just too complex to sort through those contradictions so we ignore them. We let the media tell us what to think and what to believe and somewhere below the surface, deep inside our spirit somewhere those paradoxes, those deep contradictions are tearing us apart. PARADOX. I wonder whether it isn't time to take stock, you know, have a paradox stock take. Let’s just stop and think for a minute: How satisfying is my life? How happy am I? If I died tonight, lying on my death bed, would I think, "Yep, it’s been a great life; I wouldn't have changed a thing." I suspect a very high proportion of people would have some very unsettling answers to those questions. Let’s look through our lives. Family: how rich are those relationships? Our work and our vocation: how happy am I with what I do? How happy am I with the relationships at work? My leisure time: Nights, do I just watch some re-run of something on the tube? Weekends, what do I do with my weekends? Holidays, are they satisfying or are they empty? I mean, do they live up to the brochures or do I get there and think, "Oh, I’m still not happy." Deep down in my spirit is everything right or is there something missing? In my behaviour, am I happy with that? I was having lunch with a man not long ago, who was just justifying to me why he left his wife and two children for a woman fifteen years younger than him. Do you think he is happy? Then, there is just me, who I am. I look in the mirror, how happy am I with who I am? How happy are you with who you are? Okay, there are some external negative factors that happen from time to time, things that are not our fault, things we can't avoid, things we can't do anything about. We all have those, yet somehow we've got good things happening in our lives but we're not happy, they're not working, something's broken, we’re full over flying but something’s missing. Even with those external negatives that happen, sometimes we have a sense of calling or destiny on our lives and they shouldn't be there. My hunch is this is ringing a few bells out there. These paradoxes are going on and there are tensions inside that are pulling us apart. Something is missing, something is broken, something isn't right. This is a paradox and most people just meander along through life and ignore it, because we're too busy, because it’s too hard to confront. And what we don't notice is that we think we are walking along a nice level piece of land but actually is going gradually, gradually downhill. Most people would give anything, anything, to have a great life – "I would just die to have a life like that." Stop. Have a look, have a think, what are the paradoxes going on in your life? What are the things that should be working that aren't working? What are the things that should be blessing you, that aren't blessing you? How many people are in marriages who aren't being blessed by that relationship? ‘I would give anything, I would just die to have that sort of a life’, I can hear you say. That’s a paradox, but let’s unpack that sentiment for a minute. Would you, would you die? Would you die, to live? Think of a smoker. Now, here's the question. Smoking is killing a person. Most people, who smoke, will die of emphysema or cancer. The smoker is addicted, it’s costing him life, but will he pay the price now, to get the reward later? Depends on how much he wants to live. Will he die to that to get true life? When I say, "I would just die to have a great life", would I? Would you? Are you and I prepared to take stock of those paradoxes and say, "That one and that one, I actually have to make some changes here. I actually have to do some stuff here", because, here's the crunch in the paradox stock take, there are things tearing people apart. Smoking tears people apart. They know it’s bad, they know it’s killing them, they still do it. Do you think you can have a fun life like that? It's not just smoking, it’s all the other things in our life that tear us apart inside, the things that we know well they’re just not quite right. Are we prepared to pay the cost? When we say I would just die to have a great life, would we? There was a wealthy young man, he wasn’t satisfied, there was something missing, and for him, eternal life was the trigger and he walked up to Jesus, two thousand years ago, and he said, “What do I have to do, what do I have to do to get eternal life?” Now, this guy is rich … this guy is rich in a subsistence economy where most people were struggling to get enough wheat to eat. This guy is rich and something is missing, and he says to Jesus "What must I do?" And Jesus knew exactly what was going on. So Jesus helps him to unpack the problem, he cuts right to the heart. Jesus says, "Look keep the commandments, don't murder, don't commit adultery, don't steal, don’t lie." And the young man says, "I've done all of that”, and listen to the words he says, he says – "but something is still missing”. What a paradox. "Well, if you want to get your life together,” says Jesus, "Go sell everything you have and give it to the poor and then come and follow me." Bang, finger right on the issue. Is Jesus saying we all need to be poor? No. You look at a whole bunch of people throughout the Bible and God blesses them and they become wealthy. Solomon, David, look there is a list as long as your arm. That’s not what Jesus is saying. Jesus is putting his finger on the one thing that is stopping this young man from having a great life because his wealth is binding him up, his sense of value is bound up in his wealth. And Jesus says, "Look, go get rid of that and I will give you wealth like you can't believe, I'll give you a spiritual wealth, I will give you a life, an eternal life you cannot imagine." Jesus peels back the layers of the onion. What did the young man do? Well, when the young man heard it, he went away sad because he had great wealth. There is a price to following Jesus Christ, not some fairy floss, luvvy duvvy, happy ending kind of story. There is a price and that price is laying things down, that price is taking the things that we know are ruining our lives and laying them down and changing. And it turns out; the price is laying down the very thing that is ruining our lives just like the smoker. You know I used to hear this word "repent" and think, "Oh what rubbish", but Jesus puts his finger on the things that are ruining our lives and calls us to an abundant life. I would die to have a life like that. Would you, would you really? Are you really prepared to pay the price? The rest of this week we will be looking at that question from a different perspective. /episode/index/show/32d04db5-1dff-4476-bc65-2e28e83b1760/id/35233165

The Gift of God // The 5 Most Important Truths God Wants You To Know, Part 5 03/28/2025

The Gift of God // The 5 Most Important Truths God Wants You To Know, Part 5 Some people have discovered their gig in life – they know what their particular talent is, and they’re living it. But most – most haven’t. Do they have a gift? Does God have a plan to use that gift? One of the most rewarding things in my life is watching my three children grow from childhood into adulthood. They're all young adults now, thirty two, thirty and twenty one years old, our baby. The two older ones are the boys and the youngest is our daughter. Why is it so rewarding? Well in part you see the huge investment that you put into them finally bearing some fruit. There's that but even more so it's seeing them become who they're meant to be, it's seeing their natural gifts and abilities shine forth as they make their way into the world. Each of our three are so incredibly different, totally and yet each time I've seen them become young adults and then begin to mature I can't tell you the delight that I get from seeing them just growing into their natural giftings. I'm joined again today on the program by Brett Barclay who's sharing with us this week "The Top Five Truths that God Wants Us to Believe" and number five today, we're talking about the fact that God’s made each one of us unique with a destiny and with a purpose. And Brett I wonder if I get such a thrill out of seeing my three kids grow up can you imagine how God feels when He looks at you and me? Brett: Yeah amazing. You know we are literally the apple of His eye. I think you've just described it beautifully, the heart of a father is to see their children grow up not only in stature, physically, you know to mature into a grown man or woman but also to mature in character and calling. There was a great poet that said there's two really important days in your life, the day that you are born and the day you discover why. And so as believers we're not left to our own devices, when you come into a relationship with God there's a package deal and one of those things is God has a purpose, He's uniquely gifted you and uniquely endowed you with some great gifts and abilities with which to live a very fruitful and fulfilling life. Berni: That's a really liberating thing because a lot of people don't see that they've got any gift at all. I know people, there's one woman who's serves this ministry, she actually types the transcripts of almost every radio program I've produced, she has a whole bunch of issues in her life and she never thought she could actually make a difference in anyone's. Well I've got to tell you, tens of thousands of people read the transcripts that she types. Brett: That's amazing and that's what it's all about. She's found what God wants her to do and it is one of the great privileges of walking with God to know that He has a purpose and He has, not only a purpose but Jesus talked about it in John 15 where He said: You did not choose me, I chose you that you may go and bear fruit and that fruit should remain. Berni: A bit different from our traditional view of the world. I mean our view is so often "what's in it for me?"but this is a different perspective, this is about using our gifts and talents for other people, I mean with Christians we talk about servanthood I guess. Brett: Yeah, so let me read a Scripture, I think it will speak to that very well, this is in 1 Peter chapter 4, verse 10 and 11 and it says: As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another (That word minister means to serve) as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. So there are some powerful things there. So each one has received a gift and maybe multiple gifts, minister that to one another, in other words you and I don't serve people just in any capacity, it is actually God's specific intent that you and I will serve one another, you know people in our community, people in Church, our families, with a specific gifting. Berni: I'm so glad you know, if someone called me into children’s ministry, if I had to look after the kids on Sunday at Church I'd go nuts. I'm really glad I get to use what God made me to be and not have to be someone else, these wonderful people who look after the kids, God bless them, I love the kids but I'd die if I had to do that. Brett: Yeah and this is … Berni the fascinating thing about this is, this ties back to what we were talking about before because when you know that you are right with God irrespective of your performance you won't be manipulated to serve in an area that you're not called to. Now that is a really important thing because right now every person listening to me right now you've got unique talents, unique gifts and the great thing about that is that one day we will stand before God, people who are in relationship with God and receive a reward for the work that's come from those gifts and so when it says we need to minister those gifts to one another, I love that because it says that the gifts are not there for you and I although they do bring, like you were talking about, they bring great fulfilment when you use them but that's not the primary reason, the primary reason is that you may serve others with those gifts. Berni: A fruit tree doesn't eat its own fruit. Brett: That's right. Berni: A grapevine doesn't eat its own grapes; other people come to eat the grapes. Brett: That's right, it's the only reason a vine exists, it's good for no other reason but to bear fruit. What you find in this Scripture is such a powerful thing, let me just bring up another word Berni which is really important here, it says the word steward, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. This is incredible, right now, if you're listening to this right now in your life as a believer, as a Christian, you have received an expression of the grace of God. God has taken a piece of Himself, if you like an expression of who He is and He has put it in your life. Now the amazing thing about that is He says you need to be a good steward over that. What is a steward? A steward is someone who manages the property of another. Amazing huh? So God has given us a piece of His manifold grace and He wants us to steward that for Him. It's not ours, we don't own it, it's His and He wants us to look after it and make it grow. Berni: Cool. Brett: That's the amazing thing about that is that, there's a couple of really key points there. Number one, our motivation with which we serve is others. It's not about me trying to create a life for myself, it's about I genuinely love and value other people and I want to take of what God has given me and serve them with it. This whole idea of stewards has an amazing end to it because ultimately if you're a steward the person who gave you the goods will come back and ask you what you did with them and so as a steward God will one day ask, say Berni, what did you do with what I gave you? And so that's powerful because that gives us hope to know that hey I'm in this world, I'm in this life to steward what God has given me for the benefit of others. Berni: And in that parable of the talents where each of the three slaves was given a certain amount of money to invest according to their ability, the guy who copped a real tongue lashing, didn't he, was the guy who didn't do anything with what God gave him to steward. I mean he copped it really badly from Jesus. Brett: Yeah he did, in fact he said: You wicked and unfaithful servant. As people who are entering into a relationship with God or who are in a relationship with God we don't want to hear that. Berni: I want to tell you something quickly about Brett. Brett's fairly quiet, sort of a quietly spoken guy, the moment I first had coffee with him, the moment you talk to him and say, "what's your gig in life?" He starts to talk about teaching and sharing Gods word. He lights up like a light, it's like someone flicked a switch and this light lights up on the other side of the table and that's the thing isn't it? When we're doing what God's made us to do you have a ball, it's hard some days but it's so fulfilling. Brett: Yeah absolutely, what did Mark Twain the great poet say? He said: Make your vocation your vacation. So other words make what you do in life your holiday, you'll never work another day in your life which I'm sure you feel that way, I feel that way. Berni: We're out of time, Brett it's been great to catch up with you and we might do this another time. Brett: Sounds great, thanks for having me Berni. /episode/index/show/32d04db5-1dff-4476-bc65-2e28e83b1760/id/35233140

The Love of God // The 5 Most Important Truths God Wants You To Know, Part 4 03/27/2025

The Love of God // The 5 Most Important Truths God Wants You To Know, Part 4 You and I know that we have to work hard in order to be rewarded in this world. And to a point … to a point that’s true. But what happens when we take that truth just a bit too far is that truth, becomes a lie. I’m joined again today on the program by Brett Barclay who this week is talking to us about "The Top 5 Truths that God Wants Us to Believe". You'll recall over the past few weeks we've been looking at the lies the devil tries to feed us so it's a pretty good time for us to be talking about truth. And you know what, ultimately even though we may not realise it the truth matters because the truth works. I know that God wants the most amazing life for you and for me, not always a life of luxury and success but a life that counts, that counts for something, that counts for Him, and a life that satisfies us. And the more I read about Jesus and what He did and what He said the more I come to the conclusion that by any measure the world may care to offer up His truth is totally counter intuitive. Take for example the idea that if you work hard in this world you're going to earn the rewards. Now to a point, to a point that's true but we can take that too far can't we? What's your perspective Brett? Brett: Yeah I think absolutely that's definitely true and you know Paul the Apostle said if you don't work you shall not eat, so we need to be working and we need to be productive that's certainly true. Berni: But we can take it too far can't we? Brett: We can, and in our relationship with God Berni when a person comes into a great relationship with God the Bible teaches that we're actually adopted into His family. So once we did not have a heavenly Father, now we do. I know when my daughter, my two year old daughter Sophia was born I started to feel emotions that I'd never felt before and my wife's heart and my heart was to literally bless that girl in every way possible. Berni: You want to bless their socks off don't you? Brett: You do, you do and where do you stop, that's the question, where do you stop? And you know as a father, do you know Berni my desire to bless her and to provide for her, her behaviour is irrelevant, you know her behaviour most days is great, some days it's not so good but I didn't provide or not provide for her based on her performance. My provision and my love and my supply to her is based solely on my love for her. Berni: Okay so let's take that analogy then of you being a dad to God our Father, what's Gods Word say about His provision to meeting our needs? Brett: In Matthew 6, verse 25 to 34, I encourage you to go and read that afterwards, Jesus talks about the birds of the air and the lilies of the field and listen to what He says. He says: The birds of the air they neither sow nor reap nor do they gather into barns and the lilies of the field neither toil nor spin. Now Berni there you have three principles of life that will really get you ahead. Sowing and reaping, it's about sowing for tomorrow, about receiving a harvest, gathering into barns is about living below your means and saving for the future and toiling or spinning is exactly what we were talking about at the start of the program. Hey you need to work hard and you know Jesus says that God doesn't provide for the birds of the air or the lilies of the field based on any of those principles. Berni: He just provides. Brett: He just provides because He is a loving Father and He's not saying don't do those things, He is saying the basis of His provision is the fact His unending love is why He wants to provide and bless you. Berni: Okay but isn't it easy for us to get a view of that that comes from a position of relative affluence, we live in a world where billions of people are starving, billions of people don't have access to clean drinking water, billions of people don't have a roof over their head, what about them? What has Jesus got to say to them about Gods provision? Brett: Very clearly that it is largely irrelevant where you live in the world, the point is that God loves you and God will provide, God will find a way and you know Berni we talked about the just shall live by faith is in every area of our life. Faith is the cornerstone; faith in Christ is the cornerstone of how we live. That pertains to our salvation, pertains to healing, it pertains to provision and finances and being able to get your daily food and your daily provision. Even the Lord's Prayer says: Give us this day our daily bread. So our Father in heaven gives me what I need today. When the children of Israel went through the wilderness day by day He provided for them. So there might be some people listening to us who are really in the wilderness, I want to tell you dear friend that Jesus will provide. In fact in this context of Scripture Berni which is incredible, the word "worry" is used five times, it's the biggest concentration of that word worry in the whole Bible. Amazing, why is that? Because we can worry about where the next meal's coming from or how we're going to pay this or how we're going to pay that. So Jesus says, hey guys don't worry, I'm your Father, I see your needs and I will provide for you. Berni: Does hard work and diligence have a place here? I mean before you answer that Ecclesiastes chapter 10, verse 18 says: Through sloth the roof sinks and through indolence the house leaks. So there is a sense, if you and I are spiritual couch potatoes and we just sit there and wait for the world to come to us, the world's not going to come to us right? Brett: Correct, absolutely, yeah. So diligence definitely plays a role and we've been talking about faith a lot, the Bible talks about faith without works is dead, so there is definitely that faith in Christ has corresponding actions to it and we need to be active. You know there's a great Scripture, I believe it's in Corinthians that says: Always be abounding in the work of the Lord. So yeah, diligence, hard work, they're all very sound Biblical principles, definitely. Berni: So how do we bring these two together? On the one hand yes, we do have to do stuff, sometimes we're capable of doing that, sometimes we slip over on the train and we're in hospital and we can't go and earn any money which is just incidentally if you're listening that's exactly what happened to Brett a few weeks ago and he's only just recovering the poor bloke, it's good that he's here. So sometimes we're capable of being diligent and we're capable of providing and so on and so forth but other times like the mother who is in the Somalia refugee camp who is listening today and watching her child dying of starvation, sometimes we can't provide for ourselves, some people simply can't. How do you bring these two together. See it's a hard thing isn't it? Brett: It is, it is a very hard thing and they're challenges that I've never had to face in my life. I would say that, to people like that who are listening, is that, just like I love my daughter and you love your children is that God loves you with an everlasting love and provision for you might mean something very different than provision does for me. But this is one thing I want you to know is that Jesus died to bring you into His family, that He may provide for you and that He may bless you and that again may mean something very different depending on the culture and the country that you live in. But I want you to know don't put faith, don't trust in your circumstances and there may be no reason to put trust in your circumstances, put all your trust in Christ. Berni: You see the reason we get afraid is because we do trust in our circumstances because our circumstances appear to be bigger than God, the adversity appears to be bigger than God and so we end up trusting that and that's why we worry and that's why we get afraid. Brett: Yeah absolutely and even with people who are wealthy and have a lot of money, you know Jesus said to the rich young man how hard it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Why? Because they've got no reason to trust in God, they've got all this money that can provide for a lot of their needs but the Christian life is fundamentally about trusting and believing in Christ. Berni: And my experience of God is that when I've been at my lowest depths God has always been in that place with me. Brett: Yeah. Berni: Not once has He not been there. Brett thanks for joining me today. Brett: Thanks Berni. /episode/index/show/32d04db5-1dff-4476-bc65-2e28e83b1760/id/35233120

Confidence with God // The 5 Most Important Truths God Wants You To Know, Part 3 03/26/2025

Confidence with God // The 5 Most Important Truths God Wants You To Know, Part 3 Most people can’t imagine being confident in standing before God. Let alone being bold in His Presence. But … well, that’s exactly what God wants us to be. Confident and Bold … but how? One of the hardest things for me to unlearn is the idea of being afraid of God but instead be confident before Him. Why? Well you know we've all done stuff, you've done stuff and I've done stuff. It's a bit like with our fathers when we were kids. When we'd done stuff we knew there were going to be consequences and so we wanted to run and hide and then when we do come to that point of putting our trust in Jesus and wanting to follow Him, well you know, the fear thing is still there for most of us. I'm joined again today on the program by Brett Barclay who's sharing with us this week the top five truths that God wants us to believe. Mate welcome again to the program. Brett: Hey great to be here, thanks Berni. Berni: So confidence before God, boldness before God, doesn't the Bible tell us that we should fear God too? What's going on here? What's this all about? Brett: Well, all the Bible says is true so we need to reconcile those truths but in the context of our relationship with God and in the context of what we've been talking about, being the righteousness of God and having faith in the perfect life of Christ, the atmosphere and our approach to God is an approach of boldness and confidence because we trust in the one who is right with God. Berni: But isn't it in a sense natural for us to be afraid of God, timid with God, shy even with God because we have all done stuff wrong. And if you believe the whole righteousness of God thing which is where we're having a right standing with God that means there can be a wrong standing with God, and a wrong standing with a God who promises that we will spend eternity without Him in a place called hell if we don't do the right stuff is a pretty scary thing? Brett: Yeah it is. Berni: And it's meant to be. Brett: Yeah exactly. It is meant to be and I think if you go all the way back to Genesis you see when Adam first sinned, he made a decision to go off in his own direction. We see two incredible responses from Adam, it says in the new King James Version that he hid himself and he made for himself an apron. So he actually retreated, ran away from the presence of God and then he tried in his own strength to make himself acceptable to God. Berni: Have you ever thought about how nuts it is to try and hide from God? Has that ever crossed your mind? Brett: Where do you go? Berni: Yeah. Brett: Exactly, even like Psalms talks about where can I go from your presence? And in fact where do we want to go because He is so loving, He is so kind, we actually want to be with Him 24x7 and the basis of being with Him 24x7 is the fact that, not in my own strength. You know Berni, you were talking about stuff before, you've done stuff, our listeners have done stuff, hey I've done stuff too and that stuff separated me from God but when Jesus was on the cross all our stuff, the punishment for our stuff, for our mistakes, our wrongs fell on Christ. You know something here's an amazing thing to think about is that the punishment for our sin was extinguished on the body of Christ. When He hung on that cross all the wrath of God was extinguished on the body of Christ. There's a great psalm, I think it's Psalm 30 that says: His anger is but for a moment but his favour is for life. That moment was the moment when Christ hung on the cross. God’s anger fell on Christ and His favour may fall on us. Berni: That is powerful stuff. That rocks my socks off. Brett: That's amazing hey? That's our God. That's the Gospel that we have. It's incredible when that actually seeps into your heart, when you recognise that you start to think, "Well how do I approach God? If God's my Father" … You know, both you and I are fathers there's nothing that could ever separate you from your kids, I mean the love that you have for your children it's indescribable is it not? But you know Jesus in Matthew 7 says if you've been evil, so even though you're not perfect you know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more so will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him. So His Fatherhood, His example of a father way outstrips even the greatest human father. Berni: It strikes me when you talk about confidence before God it's a question of who or what we have our confidence in. Brett: That's exactly right and if, my goodness, if my confidence is in Brett Barclay, my goodness, Brett Barclay some days he's up and some days he's down and that's the truth, that's the human condition but if we trust in the One who is always perfect and we realise what took place on the cross we understand that our approach to God is full of confidence and boldness. Can I read you a couple of Scriptures on this, Hebrews, I love, these are life Scriptures for me, fantastic, Hebrews 10 verse 19 says: Therefore brethren having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus. So the Holiest is where God lived, it was His dwelling place; and so you and I can enter the immediate presence of God with boldness. Berni: And when you recognise who that was written to which was the Hebrew nation, the Jewish nation and only once a year on Yom Kippur could one person, the High Priest enter into the Holy of Holy's and now, read that Scripture to us again. Brett: It says: Therefore brethren having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus. Berni: Yeah, that is radical, that would have blown their minds. Brett: Absolutely and I tell you what, if you read through the Books of the Old Testament one word you will not see with how the High Priest approached God is boldness. Berni: No. Brett: Because the price for sin had not been paid. Berni: Interestingly the day the High Priest went in to the Holy of Holy's what did they attach to his ankle? Brett: Well my understanding is that it was a rope. Berni: And a bell. Brett: Yes that's right. Berni: And the bell was there to make the noise to make sure that they knew he was still alive and the rope was there to pull him out if he died. Brett: Exactly. Berni: So that was the fear of God in the Holy of Holy's and it is such an incredible breakthrough to imagine that by the blood of Christ we've been brought near to God and we can stand before God completely confident in what Jesus has done for us. Totally. Brett: One hundred percent. Let me read another Scripture, it's fantastic, Ephesians 3:12 says: In whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Jesus Christ. Now let me just make a quick comment on these two Scriptures, one says we have boldness by the blood of Jesus, the other one says we have boldness and confidence through faith in Him. You notice that there's none of you and I in there? All our confidence and all our boldness is in the One who is perfect, the One who came to earth to make the way back to God so that's why I can be confident and practically Berni how this works is, you know what? On my worst day and on my best day it's my approach to God is the same because it's not about my, we talked about performance based religion, it's not about my performance, it's about Christs performance. That's what makes be bold and that is what makes me confident. Berni: You know when I need that boldness most, when I know I've failed God. When I know I have fallen flat on my face and I'm the guy that gets behind the radio mike every day and every week to do this and I have fallen flat on my face before God, if I did not have that boldness I would not keep short accounts with God. If I did not have that boldness I would not go to God and say, "God I am sorry, forgive me." Brett: Yeah that's exactly right and Hebrews 4 talks about that. Let us come boldly to the throne of grace in time of need. The time of need is not when you're doing well it's when you've done wrong, it's when you've done badly. Berni: That is awesome stuff. So let me encourage anybody who's listening today whose kind of nervous standing before God, who's afraid. If you believe that Jesus died for you and rose again, if that's what you believe you may stand before God completely clean, completely pure, completely in right standing with Him and bold and confident in what Jesus did for you. Brett, thanks for joining me today. Brett: Thanks Berni. /episode/index/show/32d04db5-1dff-4476-bc65-2e28e83b1760/id/35233090

Performance Based Religion // The 5 Most Important Truths God Wants You To Know, Part 2 03/25/2025

Performance Based Religion // The 5 Most Important Truths God Wants You To Know, Part 2 The world’s system is a performance-based system. Perform, and you get rewarded. Perform and you win. Perform and you succeed. Most religions are like that too. What about Jesus? Is He into performance-based religion too? It's great to be with you again today and I'm joined by my very special guest on the program this week, Brett Barclay and Brett I believe that today we're going to talk about performance based religion, is that right? Brett: We are, yeah. Berni: Okay, so let me ask you this: Is Christianity a performance-based religion? A very simple answer: one word, yes or no? Brett: Yes, it is. Berni: Ooh there's a few people who are going to want to burn you at the stake mate. (Both laugh) Now Jesus said a lot of things about following Him that are more than just moderately inconvenient. Taking up your cross, denying yourself, dying to self, was He right? Is it difficult to follow Jesus? Brett: I would say it is not only difficult or hard or challenging, it is actually impossible and until a Christian comes to the place where they realise that it is impossible to serve God in their own strength I would say that they cannot bring forth anything that's of eternal value. Berni: So if it's hard to follow Jesus, what's the point? I mean why bother? Here we have it, a performance based religion according to you but I'm glad you're in a nice safe radio studio. Performance based religion – you do this and you'll get rewarded – just like all the others. Is that what you're saying? Brett: No, I'm not actually saying that. I think it's very important in the Christian life to lay good foundations. Imagine if you were building a building and you didn't take the time to lay the right foundations, that would inevitably lead to a damaged or a weak building. One of the foundations of the Christian life is the righteousness of God. Let me just read a Scripture to you, fantastic Scripture, it's in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 21, it says: For he made him (That's God made Jesus) who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him. So we can see there that God made Jesus to take our penalty of sin in order that we might take His righteousness. Now what that means is that you and I Berni and every believing Christian that are born again of the Spirit of God actually stands before God as the very righteousness of God. It's like this. In Philippians 4 it talks about that the peace of God shall guard your heart and mind through Christ Jesus when we pray, and we pray with thanksgiving. Now what does that mean? It means this, that the very peace of God, the self-same peace that God enjoys, we enjoy. If I was to take off my watch and give you my watch and that would be Brett's watch and I give it to Berni, you would have my watch, it wouldn't be an inferior watch to my watch, it's actually my watch and I've given it to you. You and I have the very same righteousness that Christ has. His performance, His perfect life is now on my record. That's what I'm talking about when we talk about a solid foundation. It's His performance that is my foundation. Berni: See in every other religion known to man – mankind, let me be politically correct – it's about the person’s performance, it's your performance and my performance. Brett: Yeah. Berni: Those religions teach that somehow you work your way into someone’s favour by doing good. Brett: Yes. Berni: And what you're saying is completely 180 degrees the opposite way round. You're saying the way we work our way into God’s favour is through what Jesus did. Brett: That's exactly right, perfectly summed up, yes. Berni: And it's interesting because a lot of people listening to us today chatting have never accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and saviour. Over half of the people, I know statistically, who are listening to us speak right at the moment around the world haven't accepted Jesus. So when you talk about the righteousness of God becoming ours, the peace of God becoming ours, when you start to put it in those terms, that I get to have the same peace that God has. That's a pretty attractive commodity. Brett: I would say very attractive indeed, absolutely because I know even within Australia here, I've spoken to a medical Doctor recently and that many illnesses and sicknesses are anxiety and depressive related illnesses. So peace … you know Jesus said: My peace I give to you, my peace I leave with you. And so the peace, of true peace of mind and heart is a very rare commodity. I would in fact say that it is extinct outside a personal relationship with God through Christ Jesus. Berni: But let me bring you back to what you said at the outset. The problem with following Jesus, you talk about peace but then you say the problem with following Jesus is that it's hard, in fact it's so hard we can't do it in our own strength. Do you see how someone who's tuning into you and me having this little chat goes, 'hang on a minute, this guy’s loopy. On the one hand he's saying I can have the same peace that God has, on the other hand he's saying following Jesus is so hard I can't possibly do it. Brett: Yeah, yeah and I did say that so what we're talking about here is understanding that following Jesus is essential. You know the word disciple, if you look at the word disciple it originally means learner and then it came to mean follower and so we become a disciple of Christ which is a follower of Christ so I walk in His footsteps. However the key point and the key phrase here is in my own strength. Let me read another Scripture to you if I may. This is a great Scripture; this is probably one of the premiere Scriptures from Paul the Apostle on what it means to be a Christian. Let me read this to you, Galatians chapter 2, verse 20 says: I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God. Berni: Okay so it's no longer I that live but Christ who lives in me so does that mean I lose my identity? Does that mean I lose my uniqueness? Does that mean that a Christian is just like an, I don't know, an unquestioning zombie that follows after Jesus? Brett: Not at all, you maintain your wonderful personality; you maintain your uniqueness that you received from God, your gifts, your talents even your thinking. When you become a Christian your thinking doesn't change automatically, that needs to be refreshed and renewed by the Word of God but what it does mean is that the centre of your being. Imagine if you were a car and the engine of your life, the thing that actually drives it forward and makes it possible, that engine, your life has been radically transformed. We talked about a sin nature a while ago, what I'm talking about now is a righteous nature. So what Paul's saying here in Galatians 2:20 is that Christ actually comes in and lives on the inside of you. Berni: Okay great theory, what has that meant in your life specifically for Brett Barclay? Brett: Yeah a lot, a great deal. Here's some basic things. It means that I no longer have a desire for sin; I have a desire for God so that my life is about wanting to serve God, walk with Him, enjoy the beautiful nature of His fellowship of relationship with Him. It's also meant a great deal to me in terms of purpose. I was a young man who had a lot of illness growing up and really had a very cut off vision for my future so I couldn't see a future for myself but when Christ came into my life He gave me a purpose and a reason for living and you know that's why I'm here today. I wouldn't dream of doing this stuff, be on a radio program talking about Christ, I mean I was the guy who used to walk to the other side of the road when Christians used to hand out tracks. Berni: Hey mate, my kind of guy, absolutely. Hey listen tomorrow we're going to chat about something interesting, we're talking about confidence before God, that's a really interesting thing. Brett: Amen and I am so excited to talk to you about confidence before God because that's the result of being the righteousness of God. Berni: Brett thanks for joining me today. Brett: Thanks Berni. /episode/index/show/32d04db5-1dff-4476-bc65-2e28e83b1760/id/35233080

Just Like Jesus // The 5 Most Important Truths God Wants You To Know, Part 1 03/24/2025

Just Like Jesus // The 5 Most Important Truths God Wants You To Know, Part 1 Can you imagine what it would be like if you and I could have the same relationship, the same standing, the same intimacy with God as Jesus does. Can you just imagine? Well … turns out, that’s precisely why Jesus came. It's Monday again and I'm joined today and this week on the program by a very special guest Brett Barclay. His day job? Well he helps companies and organisations to learn and grow and perform. Some interesting clients there on his client list but at the heart of who Brett is lies the theologian, the theology lecturer. If that all sounds just a bit daunting, he’s a man who's passionate about seeing people discover how awesome it is to live the truth of who God is and what He's done for us and what that means for a new life here on earth and for all eternity. Sounds a bit like a man after my own heart, in fact I had coffee with Brett recently and we were talking about this and what I could see was the passion he has for seeing the rest of us live an extraordinary life. So I've invited him to the program to talk about the top five truths that God wants us to believe. Berni: Brett, hi and welcome to the program. Brett: Thanks for inviting me Berni, it's great to be here. Berni: Mate let me ask you something, as a businessman, as I guess a minister, it's just an ordinary guy, what makes you tick? What flicks your switch? Brett: I would say one word, Christ. Everything that I do in business and ministry is really about me fulfilling what God has called me to do with my life. I guess I'm a teacher at heart, that's a primary gift, a primary motivation I guess that I have both in my business and also in ministry. I consider it an awesome privilege to be serving Christ and to be, I guess, living in the privileges and the liberty of this Gospel that we have and to be able to share that with others, to be able to help companies grow. I help leaders and executives develop and help Bible college students and Christians like you and me grow and develop in whatever areas are important to them. For business people it's usually about performance on the job. Obviously for Christians it's about understanding who Christ is and who they are in Him. Berni: All right so tell me in the list of the top five truths that God wants us to believe what's the number one on the list do you think? Brett: I would say that number one for me is that the Christian stands before God as righteous as Christ is, that's a big truth. Berni: Okay, just let me pull you up on this, this thing ‘righteous’. Christians bandy righteousness around all the time, it's a word that we use but I guess you wouldn't use it so much in your business consulting would you? It's a bit like the word ‘sin’, sin has become a four letter word in society so unpack this thing righteous. Brett: "Righteous" is basically a characteristic of God, to be righteous means we're in right standing with God, you know the clear teaching of the Bible is that the just or Christian shall live by faith, a righteous person lives by faith, we don't get to be righteous through our own effort ... Berni: Just as well. Brett: Yeah, exactly but we get to be righteous by believing in the one who is righteous, Christ. Berni: And I guess the flip side of righteousness is sin, explain that to me, what's your take on that? Brett: I think the easiest definition of sin in my mind is to miss the mark. You know Romans 3 says: All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. So you know sometimes as Christians we can pick out different sins and say, 'oh that's bad, that's awful' but in fact everyone that's come through the lineage of Adam, everyone who's been born into humanity has been born with a sin nature and out of that sin nature comes a lifestyle of sin. Berni: So tell me why is righteousness relevant to us here and now? Again it's not a concept that you run across a whole bunch when you're walking down the street or in the supermarket and so for a lot of people it feels distant, it feels almost irrelevant. Tell me to the average Joe Blow, to me walking down the street why is righteousness a thing? Brett: Righteousness is a thing because originally we were created by God to be perfect, to be without sin, righteous, totally without guilt, without blame in our life but sin brought us away from that so we basically walked away from God, wanted our own agenda and our own plans. So in effect we were in wrong standing with God. So what God has always desired is for us to be in right standing. So we talk about righteousness in terms of being in right standing with God and so that's a great place to be. Berni: You reckon? Brett: Yeah, undoubtedly so. One of the great privileges of Christian life is to stand before God righteous, to know that that's not a righteousness I've earned, it's a righteousness by gift and that brings us into a tremendous life of liberty and freedom and privileges as well which is what we're going to be talking about. Berni: You know, I'm not so much my parents son because I was a perfect son all the time, I'm my parents son because they love me and I'm my parents son and I guess that's the analogy isn't it for righteousness? That when we put our trust in this Jesus that we don't get to be righteous because we happen to be so fantastic at living our lives, we get to be righteous because we're Dad's kids. Brett: That's exactly right, we're born into the family and that means we have the characteristics of our father. Berni: But okay, someone comes along and says, "yeah, yeah, hang on Brett, I hear what you're saying but I'm not really such a bad person. I mean how can a supposedly loving God possibly condemn me to hell for the few things I've done wrong in my life." I mean that would be a pretty common question wouldn't it? It's fair enough to. What would your answer be? Brett: Great question! The Bible clearly says that sin separates us from God, Isaiah talks about that. It would be like Berni this room we're in right now started to burst into flames and the only way out of this room was the back door and there was a person calling us from the back door saying, "hey Berni, hey Brett, this room is falling down, you will perish in this room and here's the back door, it's the only way out, come, come to the back door". And you see what happens is sin is basically leading to a life of destruction, it's a life that's separated from God, separated from the goodness and the provision and the mercy of God which makes life all that it is. And so when you and I sin, we are separated from that but in this burning house we're in there's a way out and that way is Christ. Jesus said that: I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me. He is the way of escape, He is the way of freedom and when we come to Him we escape out of hell, we escape out of the flames of what that means to be separate from God. Berni: So how do we grab hold of that in our life? How can I get what Jesus did for me in a way that makes a difference in my life here and now? Brett: Yeah, great question. So the Bible clearly says: Who so ever shall believe shall not perish but have everlasting life. So it's not who so ever shall perform, who so ever shall get all their behaviour right, who so ever shall not swear or shall not murder or shall not cheat on their taxes, none of those things are entry points into the Christian life. You know the Prophet Habakkuk said: The just shall live by faith. The way we get into the Christian life and the way we continue in the Christian life is by believing in the one who was perfect. He lived a perfect life not for Him but for you and I. Berni: So ... by faith in Jesus. Brett: That's right. Berni: Explain that to me, why in Jesus? Brett: Because Jesus was the God man, He was fully God, fully man, He came to earth, He actually came to die. You know Jesus said I have not come to be served but to serve and to give my life as a ransom for many. So our sins would be like going into debt to the tune of billions of dollars, we owed a great debt to God and so Jesus came to pay that debt and we trust in His righteousness and that's credited to our account. Berni: Alright! We're going to pick there again tomorrow. Brett thanks for joining me today. Brett: Thank you very much. /episode/index/show/32d04db5-1dff-4476-bc65-2e28e83b1760/id/35233040

The Refuge of the Lord // Dark Night - Bright Light, Part 10 03/21/2025

The Refuge of the Lord // Dark Night - Bright Light, Part 10 When you’re travelling through the dark days in life – it’s one thing for someone to say to us “Don’t worry God will come through in the end.” But it’s another thing entirely, when we discover the refuge of the Lord. I want you to imagine that you're out one night walking along a dark and lonely street and all of a sudden you see some drunk and unruly men coming towards you, they're swearing and they look to be wielding knives. You take a quick look around and there's not another soul in this street and just then you see a house to your left, you look in the window and you see a family sitting down to dinner. What do you do? I know what I'd be doing, I'd duck in, I'd knock on their front door as quickly as I could and I'd ask them if I could just step inside until those men disappear, wouldn't you? Now there's a name for that, it's called, "seeking refuge". It's not a sign of weakness, it doesn't mean that somehow we're a loser, it just means that in that dark and dangerous place we just need somewhere that's safe; we need a refuge. The problem is that in this world, when we're going through difficult times in dark places, so often it doesn't seem to be a refuge to be found. Refuge is a word that appears over and over and over again right through the Bible. In fact just in the Psalms it's used 48 times and of those, 46 times "refuge" is talking about God himself. Have a listen to just a few, Psalm 36, verse 7: How priceless God is your unfailing love. Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings. Psalm 62, verses 7 and 8: My salvation and my honour depend on God. He is my mighty rock and my refuge. Trust in Him all times O people, pour out your hearts to Him for God is our refuge. And in Psalm 119, verse 114: You are my refuge and my shield O God; I have put my hope in your word. Now I'd like to spend a bit of time looking at this, this "refuge" thing today because when we're going through tough times in dark and dangerous places, a refuge is exactly what we need. Over these last two weeks on the program we've been working our way through a series in, just around Psalm 34 called, "Dark Night, Bright Light". This psalm is written by King David with the wisdom of hindsight. Having been through lots and lots of dark and dangerous places, here in this Psalm David praises God because what he discovered is at the end of them all God showed up and delivered him; God came through. No matter how grim or how dark or how dangerous it appeared. That's great stuff and if you have some time, can I really encourage you to get aside and have a really good read of this short psalm, Psalm 34. But it's one thing for David to pen Psalm 34 and tell us his experience and say, "you know what I discovered? I discovered God delivered me every time." That's cool David, that's really great but it's so easy for us to respond to that and say, "well that's fine for you Davo; brilliant. Glad that God came through for you but right now I'm in a dark place and I'm petrified and the fact that God showed up for you doesn't help me much." That's a pretty natural human response. When we send out an S.O.S. to God it may well be that God will come through some time but what about the mean time? Well, have a listen to the end of this psalm of David’s, Psalm 34. We're just going to read the last few verses, verses 19 to 22 because in the very last verse God answers that question for us. Let’s have a read: The afflictions of a righteous man are many but the Lord delivers us from them all. He protects all his bones, not one of them will broken. Evil will slay the wicked; the foes of the righteous will be condemned. The Lord redeems His servants; no-one will be condemned who takes refuge in Him. There it is, that word "refuge". It means to flee to Him for protection; literally to resort to Him. Now we understand that in a physical sense, that little story that I started off with at the beginning of the program. Well it makes sense that in a dark and dangerous place we would want to flee to some sort of refuge. But when something in our lives is scary, when you've been diagnosed with cancer or your finances have fallen in a heap or your marriage seems to be falling apart or one of your kids is on drugs, what does it mean to take refuge in God then? That's a good question because this is where the rubber hits the road. Well, here's what happens when we take refuge; we feel safe, the fear is gone. That's the point, along the journey through a dark place in life we want to know that we are safe. The story at the beginning of the program of you or I walking down a dark and dangerous street and seeing these drunken youths coming towards us with a knife, the idea of being able to knock on the door of a family and go inside means that you are taken away from the danger and that you experience the peace of safety. That's what refuge means. The way that God best explains this through any part of the Bible is through a passage that I come back to again and again and again and again. The apostle Paul wrote it about 1,000 years after King David wrote Psalm 34, he's locked in a Roman dungeon on death row and he writes these words in Philippians chapter 4, beginning at verse 6: Don't be anxious about anything but in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your request to God and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Don't be anxious about anything, take it to God and put your trust in Him and pour your heart out to Him and say, "thank you God that you're here; thank you God that I'm going through what I'm going through but here's my need and I'm afraid and I need you to help, "and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." You see, that's refuge language, that's protection language. We experience fear in our hearts and in our minds, do we not? And you see, this is the other meaning of the word "refuge"; to put your trust in someone or something. Out there in a dark place, I put my trust in you God. I just go to you and I pour it out and you know what happens, God does something, He fills us with His peace. Have another listen: And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus. God’s peace. Now it doesn't make sense, that's why it surpasses all understanding, it defies human reckoning and logic and the only way I can describe it because I've been in that dark place time and time and time again, is it's like a light. Darkness is scary and God comes and shines His light, His bright light, this refuge where He protects our hearts and our minds from the fear and the light shines inside, the light that says, "you just know that He's there", and the darkness isn't scary anymore. God is in the refuge business; God is in the light business. When it's dark, when it's scary we can come to Him and pour our hearts out and He will put His protection around our hearts and our minds and give us refuge. We just end up knowing that He will deliver us. Dark Night, Bright Light. /episode/index/show/32d04db5-1dff-4476-bc65-2e28e83b1760/id/34862095

The Afflictions of the Righteous // Dark Night - Bright Light, Part 9 03/20/2025

The Afflictions of the Righteous // Dark Night - Bright Light, Part 9 It’s tough when bad things happen to good people – especially when we see good things happening to bad people – God what is going on here? Why are you letting this happen to me? There are times in life when bad things happen to good people and perhaps you're someone who believes in Jesus and you've been living your life the best way you know how and just day after day walking with Him and all of a sudden – whamo! Something happens! The sky turns dark and all of a sudden you're in one of those dark, black times that we can go through in life. A time of loss or pain or sickness or whatever it is and you kind of look around and think, "What is going on here God? I mean I know I'm not perfect but everyday I just get up and I just do my best and I walk with You; now this!" My hunch is that there are a few people who relate to what I just talked about and so I want to deal with that today because when bad things happen to good people it's such a shock and it seems so unfair especially when we take a look around and we see that there's a whole bunch of good things happening to some really bad people out there that we know. What is going on God? King David, as I've said over these last couple of weeks, is a man who went through a lot of dark times. You read about his life and sure he made some mistakes but right from the beginning God had him picked as a man after His own heart and yet he lived through so many dark and difficult times, scary times, on the run for his life. Battles with enemies that it looked like he was going to lose and God showed up just at the last minute. You take a look at his life and if you weigh his life, kind of on our human scale of justice you'd probably come to the conclusion that, well David wasn't perfect but he was definitely one of the good guys. He tried with all his might to honour God even though some days he blew it big time. And I'm sure if David looked at his life he'd come up with the same conclusion and yet this man went through so many difficult things, so many dark and lonely times. Times when people criticised him, times when he was in fear of his life, times when he felt that God had deserted him. So God, what's going on? Why is that? I mean this guy was a good guy, how come bad things happen to good people? Now I'm not sure I can answer all those questions, God is God and He decides those things but as we walk through Psalm 34, which is what we've been doing over the last couple of weeks, it’s a Psalm where David looks back on those dark times with the benefit of hindsight. Let me share with you David's own wisdom, this is what he writes is Psalm 34, verses 15 to 19. It says that: Eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and His ears are attentive to their cry but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth. The righteous cry out and the Lord hears them; He delivers them from all their troubles. The Lord is close to the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers them from them all. Well David doesn't even bother with the "why" question does he? When we're hit with those dark times the first question we utter is, "Why me God; why me?" Right, and the second one is, "How long is this going to go on for God; how long?" Well David doesn't carry on with any of that. He looks back, he accepts the sovereignty of God and after all he's been through in his life, he draws this obvious conclusion. Verse 19 of Psalm 34: Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers us from them all. In other words; stuff happens, it just does. Jesus kind of put it this way, He said: Your Father in heaven causes His Son to rise on the evil and the good and He sends his rains on the righteous and the unrighteous. In other words; good stuff and bad stuff happens to good people and bad people. There you go, it's just the way it is and it seems to be a rule that the more a man or a woman turns their lives to following hard after God, to walking in the footsteps of Jesus, the more afflictions they suffer. It's such an incredible contradiction; on the one hand God wants to bless us, He does. All the way through His word, the Bible tells us, He wants to bless us. On the other, when we set our hearts like flint to follow after Him it seems like all hell breaks loose, the world just doesn't want us to do that. Many are the afflictions of the righteous. Many! One of the promises of God and you don't hear many people shouting hallelujah to that promise do you? But the Lord delivers us from them all, His eyes are on His people, His ears are attentive to their cry. We cry out; He hears us and He delivers us from our troubles. You know what I've learnt, He doesn't always deliver me the way I expect Him to, the way I want Him to, when I want Him to. Sometimes we want Him to do one thing and He does almost exactly the opposite. Sometimes, you know, we cry out to Him and we even go to Him in faith and we say, "Lord, I believe you’re here and I believe you’re going to deliver me from this." And things go from bad to worse. Sometimes we want Him to do A and He gives us B. "What are you doing God?" And sometimes it seems like His solution and His answer means that we lose and someone else wins but in the wondrous fabric of His mighty plan for our lives, He's so much more interested in our character and who we are and our relationship with Him than He is about our perceptions of comfort and need. He's so much more concerned about His glory shining out into this world than He is about some of the things that, at the time, we think are important but in the bigger scheme of things they're really not. The apostle Paul puts it this way in Romans chapter 5, he says: Suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope and it's a hope that never disappoints us because Gods love has been poured into our hearts through His Holy Spirit. And the longer we walk with God, the more afflictions we have to suffer, the more we discover the truth of King David’s words in Psalm 34. The Lord hears our cry, He delivers us from our troubles, He is close to the broken hearted and He saves those who are crushed. Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers him from them all. That is an awesome thing. Now I don't know what afflictions maybe you're walking through right now and can I just encourage you; put away the "why" question, put away the "how long" question and just listen to the word of God again. The Lord is close to the broken hearted. He saves those who are crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers us from them all. I've only been walking with God now for just on 13 years but I look back and I see the things I've had to walk through, I see the afflictions. Even when those afflictions, can I tell you, have come from my own mistakes and I'm living out those consequences and just somehow, in His own good time, God works it so that I learn and that I heal and that He delivers me from this stuff and even if I have to lose my life serving Him I have all eternity to rejoice in Him. Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers us from them all. /episode/index/show/32d04db5-1dff-4476-bc65-2e28e83b1760/id/34862075

When the Rubber Hits the Road // Dark Night - Bright Light, Part 8 03/19/2025

When the Rubber Hits the Road // Dark Night - Bright Light, Part 8 As we travel through those dark days in life – it’s easy just to let go and compromise who we are and what we do – we sin to save our skin. But I believe that God wants to challenge us about that very thing today. Last week and again this week on the program we've been stepping our way through a series that I've called "Dark Night, Bright Light" because we all travel through dark patches in our lives. I certainly have and I know that you have too and maybe you're even in the middle of one right now and so we've been spending some time with King David in Psalm 34 where he shares some of the wisdom that he's discovered in the middle of his many, many dark days. Yesterday we saw that it really makes a difference what we do in those dark places, it's so easy to give in and just let things slide and use our difficulties as an excuse for letting the darkness smear the way that we think and speak and behave. Well today I'd just like to stick with that idea for a bit longer because David goes on to talk about that and he throws the gauntlet down to you and me with a challenge. A challenge about how you and I behave, how we live our lives when those storm clouds come rolling in over the horizon and it's a challenge that I'd like to share with you, for you to think about in your life. Psalm 34, as I've said a few times over these last couple of weeks, is King David writing down the wisdom he learned from God in his dark times and as we've spent this time in that psalm over the last couple of weeks I hope that you've been blessed as I am as we work our way through the wondrous word of God. Imagine, the God who created the whole universe speaking to you and me through His word, through something that was written, well about 3,000 years ago. We're going to move on with the next few verses of this Psalm today because they contain a specific challenge, a challenge to you and to me. Have a listen, Psalm 34 beginning at verse 11: Come my children listen to me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies. Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. See sometimes we wonder, well how do we live out this fear of the Lord? Do I just kind of sit in the corner and tremble? No, it's not that at all. David, remember this David who is speaking to us from his own difficult dark experience is throwing down a challenge. He's teaching us how to live out the fear of the Lord. Quite simply, if I were to paraphrase what he was saying it’s this. He says, "Do you want to live a good life, I mean do you want to live a great life? Well, here’s how to get it – by living out the fear of the Lord through what you say and what you do." Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies. Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. Now you and I are different, we're all different; we're all prone to different forms of the same thing that God calls sin. For some people it’s grumbling, others it’s gambling or lying or stealing or carrying around hatred in our hearts and speaking it out behind peoples backs. Gossiping or sexual sin or, you name it the list goes on. Over eating, getting drunk, closing ourselves off from people that we love, over and over the list goes on and my hunch is that each one of us knows which one or two are our particular sins, the ones that we're prone to and here's the challenge. If we're in a dark and fearful place, a place where there’s a temptation to stop doing good and to do evil instead, the challenge that David is throwing down here is turn away from that, do good. Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. You know that’s what it means in practical terms to fear the Lord, that’s how we live out the fear of our Lord, with our lives by living it out His way. See, we delude ourselves, we somehow imagine that in that dark place God can't see what’s going. Well wake up; listen to what the apostle Paul writes in his letter to the Church, to Galatia in Galatians chapter 6, beginning at verse 7, he says: Look, don't kid yourselves, God can't be mocked; you're going to reap what you sow. If you reap to please your sinful nature, from that nature you're going to reap destruction but if you reap to please the spirit then from the Holy Spirit you will reap eternal life. Don't become weary of doing good because just at the right time you're going to reap a harvest if you don't give up. Just so, as you have the opportunity, do good to everyone especially those who belong to Gods family. Now this was written about 1,000 years after David and he's saying the same thing in a different way, he's saying look, in those dark places it's so easy to grow weary of doing good, it's so easy to deceive ourselves, to think that we can somehow pull one over God. Don't be deceived, God can't be mocked, a man reaps what he sows and if we don't grow tired of doing good; isn't it so easy to grow weary of doing good when life’s tough. You know, when everything’s against you and your emotions are down, when the whole world seems to come after you with a pick axe, you know. The temptation is to behave badly but Paul’s saying what King David said 1,000 years before; don't grow weary of doing good. Just keep doing good, just keep standing there for God, just keep living your life for Him. Don't use the difficult circumstances and the dark places as an excuse and just at the right time, just in Gods time we will reap a harvest if we don't give up. You see it's very much in that dark place where the devil wants to tear us apart, that's the place where we need to be vigilant, to bow down our lives, to fear the Lord with our lives and just go on faithfully doing the right thing day after day after day. And His light will shine in that place, it has to, that's who He is. God honours those who honour Him and in those dark places when we, step by step, just follow after His ways what we discover is His light shines in that place and that is such a precious and awesome and mighty thing, it changes us like nothing else on this earth. That's why David starts his Psalm off with such gusto and praise because he knows this stuff works through his own experience: I will bless the Lord all the time; His praise will always be on my lips. My soul will boast in the Lord; that all those who are afflicted will hear and rejoice. Glorify the Lord with me; lets exalt His name together. I sought the Lord and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears. If we look to Him our faces will be radiant; never covered with shame. This poor man called and the Lord heard him; He saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and He delivers them. Come on taste, see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him. Fear the Lord you His holy ones for those who fear Him will have no want. The lions may grow weak and hungry but those who seek the Lord will lack no good thing. Come my children listen to me; let me teach you the fear of the Lord. Whoever of you loves life and desires to see good days, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies. Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. /episode/index/show/32d04db5-1dff-4476-bc65-2e28e83b1760/id/34862040

Let's Take a Closer Look // Dark Night - Bright Light, Part 7 03/18/2025

Let's Take a Closer Look // Dark Night - Bright Light, Part 7 When you’re travelling through dark days in life – it’s pretty normal to be afraid. But something that King David discovered in his many dark days, is that a right fear – the fear of the Lord, has some real pluses. When we're travelling through one of those dark patches in life, you know those difficult times we all go through, we're liable to experience fear and that fear can be debilitating. But on the other hand, there's a good side to fear, it's an inbuilt protection mechanism. Last week on the program we spent some time with King David in one of the many psalms that he wrote, Psalm 34 and we're continuing on with that this week because this man David is telling us what he learned about God during all those dark and dangerous and fearful times he had throughout his life. And without giving it all away, David discovers that the fear of God has some real benefits. Sounds kind of weird doesn't it? Christians talk about the "fear of the Lord" all the time but what does it really mean in those dark and fearful times and how can it possibly help me? They're good questions so stick with me over the next few minutes as we discover what David learned the hard way. We're going to be taking a bit of a closer look at this, this part of Psalm 34 because that's how we learn what God’s teaching us through David’s wisdom. I'm going to pick it up, just 3 verses, beginning at verse 9. It says: Fear the Lord you His holy ones for those who fear Him have no want. The lions may grow weak and hungry but those who seek the Lord will lack no good thing. Come children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord. I love this because it's a place where God gives us solutions to our problems. You see it's not good enough for Him to just wrap us over the knuckles with a ruler when we've done the wrong thing. We need to know how not to repeat the mistake and that’s what this piece of wisdom is all about. Let’s just look at verse 9 again, David writes: Fear the Lord you His holy ones for those who fear Him will have no want. See, this fear of the Lord has two parts. The most obvious meaning is to be afraid but it also means to reverence and honour God. I want to talk about those today because they're important. You know it's really easy to imagine that somehow God is just our buddy, like any other friend and to be sure, He is our friend. But God is also an awesome God and ultimately He will see justice done. There will be a day of judgement, there will be a day when we have to make an account before Him for all that we've done and all that we've said. Jesus made that really clear in Matthew chapter 10: 28 we can read what He said. He said this: Do not be afraid of people who can kill you your body but can't kill your soul. Rather be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Let's never lose sight of that, there are consequences to rebelling against God. And if we just wantonly go on stealing or lying or grumbling or hating or undermining or whatever it is and think to ourselves, "Well that’s okay, God’s my buddy." Then let me make this clear; we are completely missing the point. Yes Jesus died for your sins and mine, absolutely and when I get something wrong I go to God and I admit it and I say, "Lord, I just got this wrong. I'm sorry, I don't want to go there again, please forgive me." And He does because of what Jesus did for me on the cross, He paid that price. But this attitude is one that comes, to tell you truthfully, out of the fear of the Lord. A casual attitude towards God, that thinks we can keep on sinning, is not on. He won't honour that, why? Well because if you believe in Jesus, His plan for you is to be holy, in other words clean and pure and set apart exclusively for His use. Listen again to verse 9 of Psalm 34: Fear the Lord you His holy ones for those who fear Him will have no want. See, we are not our own; you put your faith in Jesus you are bought at a price and God has this awesome plan to use you just as He pleases and the devil knows that. That's why when times are tough, when we're travelling through a dark place the devil wants to smear us with his darkness. Here's the deception; things are difficult right now therefore I have to bend the rules to set things right. Money's tight, well I have to lie on my tax return, I have to steal to provide for myself. The boss is giving me a hard time, well I have to go stab him in the back to get things right. A husband or wife isn't everything they should be, I have to start looking somewhere else to find someone who is everything they should be. The devil will play that rubbish over and over and over again until we swallow it hook, line and sinker. Gods answer is exactly the opposite: Fear the Lord you His holy ones for those who fear Him will have no want. The lions may grow weak and hungry but those who seek the Lord will lack no good thing. God’s way is to say, "Don't go out there and reject me and provide for yourself." God’s way is to provide for us. Not all our wants but all our needs. Fear the Lord, fear His judgement and honour Him and reverence Him with what we think, what we say and what we do and God will make sure that we have what we need. That's a step of faith, it's so much easier to think I can just go out there and do it for myself. What a huge opposite God’s way is to our natural inclination. You know what He wants to hear us say? Yes, times are tough, yes, money is tight but I will fill out my tax return honestly. I won't claim expenses for my company that are really personal rather than company expenses. I don't care how tough things get financially I am going to fear the Lord because I am bought for a price and I am holy and I am set apart for Him and His word says that in those dark times, if I fear Him I will have no want. When I seek Him with all my heart I will lack no good thing. Do you see how different God’s way is, the way of faith, the way of putting our trust in Him. See how different that is from the world’s way which is look after number one, do whatever it takes and remember David is teaching us this stuff having been on the run from King Saul who wanted to kill him for years, sleeping in dark caves fearing for his life. This is what he learned in this dark place and that’s why he's telling us this stuff. Verse 11: Come my children, listen to me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord, living that out is what we choose to do when it's so tempting in those dark places to be smeared by the devil’s darkness. The fear of the Lord is standing in the middle of this earth afraid but deciding to trust in God’s provision. Fear the Lord you His holy ones for those who fear Him have no want. The lions may well grow weak and hungry but those who seek the Lord will lack no good thing. /episode/index/show/32d04db5-1dff-4476-bc65-2e28e83b1760/id/34862010

What We Do in the Dark // Dark Night - Bright Light, Part 6 03/17/2025

What We Do in the Dark // Dark Night - Bright Light, Part 6 Sometimes we travel through dark patches in life – and in those difficult times, it’s tempting to let that darkness smear how we think, what we say and what we do. And yet how we behave on those dark days – is so very important. It's great to be with you again this week. I'm not sure if you were able to join me last week but we began a new series called, "Dark Night, Bright Light" and it's one that we're continuing on again this week on the program. We all travel through dark times in life, times of loss or loneliness or sickness or sadness or depression, the list goes on. Now I'm not suggesting that we're all a bunch of losers, I don't mean that, it's just one of the realities of life that dark times are something that we all have to travel through. Jacqui, my wife, was talking to a long time friend of hers, her children are growing up and there's lots of challenges and problems and she's exhausted. A dear friend of mine whose son committed suicide, he and his wife are still reeling from that and another friend who's been retrenched, well he's in his fifties and it's hard for him to find a job. This stuff happens; dark times are difficult because it's dark and so often we can't see where we are or where we're going. I've had them, you've had them, that's life and that's why we're talking about these dark times again this week on the program. And it's not just about the darkness but also the bright light that shines in those dark places. Jesus said these amazing words: I am the light of the world. And one of the things we saw last week is that He is in the 'light' business and that’s good news for anyone going through a dark patch. The very first thing that God created, Genesis chapter 1, was light, a trillion, trillion stars at least. That tells us something about Him; God is definitely in the "light" business, hallelujah don't you think? Last week we spent some time with King David in Psalm 34 and we're going there again today. This man David had more than his fair share of dark, difficult and lonely and scary times. That's why what he has to say is so useful; his wisdom comes from what he learned about God. So this psalm is kind of a retrospective with a benefit of hindsight, he's looking back on the dark times, on his fear and when God showed up. Let’s read the first part of that psalm again right now; this is what he says: I will bless the Lord all the time; his praise will always be on my lips. My soul will boast in the Lord; let all those who are afflicted hear and rejoice. Glorify the Lord with me; let’s exalt His name together. I sought the Lord and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to Him are radiant; their faces are never covered in shame. This poor man called and the Lord heard him; He saved him from all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and delivers them. Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. See, David's saying God is a god who shows up in the dark times and delivers us. Now David isn't telling us that off the top of his head, it's from his experience. He spent such a long time, so many years on the run from Saul who was trying to kill him. In dark caves, in lonely places. David had fought so many battles where he was hard pressed and he should have been killed but God was there for him and one of the things that we touched on last week was fear; bad fear and good fear. Bad fear is the fear that David talks about in verse 4 of this psalm: I sought the Lord and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears. But he also goes on to talk about good fear in verse 7: The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and He delivers them. Fear of the Lord is something we're going to have a look at some more today because it's what this next part of Psalm 34 is all about. I want you to come with me now as we read just the next 5 verses of this psalm, verses 9 to 14 which is where we're going to spend a bit of time together today. He writes: Fear the Lord, you His holy ones for those who will fear Him will have no want. The lions may grow weak and hungry but those who seek the Lord will lack no good thing. Come my children, listen to me; I'll teach you the fear of the Lord. Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days; keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies. Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. This is a really important part of the psalm. The first part told us all about God and what He's like, it's fantastic, we looked at that last week. This second part though; it's about the part that we have to play during those dark times. I want to tell you something about darkness; people will do things in the dark that they won't do in the light. Think about it, we're much more careful about where we walk and what we do out there in the dark, in the night time, than we are in the day time. Robberies, muggings, murder; they're all more likely to occur under the cover of darkness. And the same is true in our lives. Dark times, well they're the times we're far more likely to do things that we know are wrong. Let me just give you a few practical examples. A husband and wife, they're going through some tough times in their marriage and their eyes start to wander, they start looking around. That's how adultery begins, instead of holding on to each other, holding close and working through the issues. Or perhaps there's conflict at work; someone’s just not treating us well and we're feeling under pressure, it's really getting to us, you know. The boss is just being horrible so we take that as an excuse to justify being lazy or stealing something or gossiping behind their back or not servicing a customer properly so that the company will lose some money. Or perhaps money's really tight, we're under real financial pressure and we're tempted to lie and cheat on our tax return or when that shop attendant gives us too much change and makes a mistake; ah we just slip it into our pockets. Do you see how easy this stuff is? In the dark times, in those hidden places the temptation to do wrong is far greater than when times are good. No-one notices it, after all times are tough, I have to look after number one, I have to look after me. I have to justify myself or protect myself or provide for myself and that’s how we rationalise this stuff. Do you notice the central theme running through all that? Me, myself and I. Darkness is a time when we're afraid and in those times we can end up being tempted to turn away from what we know is right because no-one will notice and besides we just have to. The devil loves it, he's so delighted by this. Have a listen to what the apostle John says: This is the message we've heard from Him and declare to you. God is light; in Him there's no darkness at all. If we claim to be walking with Him and yet we walk in the darkness, we lie and don't live in the truth. And so over this week we're going to look at the wisdom that comes from David’s own experience in those dark times. What he learned about what to do when temptation comes in the darkness. You know how we rationalise this? I have to sin to save my skin; when I'm afraid I just think I have to do whatever it takes, no matter what the consequences are, to save my own skin. /episode/index/show/32d04db5-1dff-4476-bc65-2e28e83b1760/id/34861995

Suck It and See // Dark Night - Bright Light, Part 5 03/14/2025

Suck It and See // Dark Night - Bright Light, Part 5 You know – when we’re travelling through one of life’s dark patches, it’s so easy for someone else to say – “Well, just take the problem to God.” But there’s only one way to find out if that’s good advice. Suck it and see. Over these last few days on the program we've been looking at those dark patches in life, those times that we all travel through that we'd rather not and we've been sharing in some of the experiences of King David who had more than his share of dark times in life and as he writes about that in Psalm 34, looking back on what he's leaned in those times, he makes this simple yet profound statement: I sought the Lord and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears. And maybe, maybe you've been travelling through one of those dark times and you hear what David has to say and perhaps you've heard the little that I've shared of my own darkness’s and you think to yourself, "Well that's okay for someone like David or for that guy on the radio. Maybe God would show up for them but I don't think this stuff is for me." Well here’s the rub; unless we seek we never find out whether it is or not and so today I want to share a very specific invitation from God, an invitation that is seriously for you. This week on the program we've been looking at some of the debilitating darkness’s we travel through in life, you know those really tough times when we're hurting or we've lost something or someone’s hurt us. You know those dark times in life and we've discovered that God is very much in the "light" business, He's in the business of shining His light into our darkness's, taking our fear and replacing it with His radiance. Perhaps that’s why King David writes – it's in Psalm 18, verse 28: It is you O Lord who lights my lamp. The Lord my God lights up my darkness. And again in Psalm 139, verses 11 and 12. He writes: If I say, 'Surely the darkness will hide me and the light will become night around me', even the darkness will not be dark to you O God. The night will shine like day for darkness is as light to you. See, you get this impression that David is an incredibly seasoned traveller through the darkness's of life and we know that he spent years on the run from King Saul who was trying to kill him, we know that David went through so many wars and battles where he could have died and where he would have been afraid and the people grumbled and sometimes turned against him. He's been through dark places and then some and he's learned some stuff that God would have us learn, each in our own way because you're not David, I'm not David. So let’s head back to this psalm that we've been looking at, Psalm 34, verses 7 and 8 just to see what it is that David learned. This is what he writes, he says: The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and delivers them. Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him. Now there are two things in here that we need to get into. The first is that bit about the angel of the Lord, look at verse 7 again: The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and He delivers them. Angels have a bit of a funny symbology these days in our society, we stick them on our cards and they're fluffy little creatures with wings but you just take a short study of the angels that God describes in the Bible and what you discover is they are a fearsome lot. Often God uses them as messengers and He sends them to talk to someone and invariably when an angel confronts a person the very first thing they say is, "Don't be afraid." And then they deliver a specific message to Gods people to protect them from trouble and often they appear as fearsome beings to protect Gods people. I'm going to read you a little passage from 2 Chronicles chapter 32, verse 20. It says this: King Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz cried out in prayer to heaven about this and the Lord sent an angel who annihilated all the fighting men and the leaders and the officers in the camp of the Assyrian king. So he withdrew to his own land in disgrace and he went to the temple of his god and some of his sons cut him down with a sword. See, get it? This angel equals serious protection. You see presidents and prime ministers and kings and queens, they get around with their bullet proof glass cars and they're security contingents. They got nothing on an angel of the Lord and you might say, "Berni, do you seriously believe in angels?" Absolutely! We can't see them but when we fear God, when we reverence Him and we belong to Him, He sends His angels, listen to what David says: The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him. He sends His angels literally to lay siege around us to protect us. How does David know that? Because he's experienced it and that’s exactly what he says in the next verse. He says: Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him. This is an often quoted scripture and often out of context, this "taste and see", "suck it and see" scripture. When you're in the darkness, when you're afraid try this thing, this thing that David is talking about. It's like an invitation to you and me from God today. For goodness sake taste and see that the Lord is good. You can stand back in your darkness and say, "Well you know I just don't believe that God’s going to do anything for me." David said, "I turned to the Lord and He answered me, He delivered me from all his fears and now He is giving us the invitation of God." Go on, taste and see for yourself that the Lord is good. You will be blessed when you take refuge in Him. "Come on try it!" I can hear the spirit of God saying through His word today. "Come on try it because when you take refuge in Me you will be blessed", is what God's saying. I don't know about you but God has seriously spoken to me and I encourage you to take Him at His word today. He is in the light business and it's something that David discovered through long hard experiences in darkness. You know the last thing we want to do is to turn to God. “Taste and see that the Lord is good”, He is in the light business and David knew that and David travelled through dark times and he cried out to God and God always delivered him and that’s why he comes out the other side of that singing Gods praises specifically for you and me to hear. I will bless the Lord at all times (he sings), His praise will always be on my lips. My soul will boast in God; let the afflicted hear and rejoice. Come and glorify God with me; let’s exalt His name together. I sought the Lord and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears. When we look on Him our faces are radiant; never covered in shame. This poor man called and the Lord heard Him and He saved him from all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and He delivers them. (Come on) Taste and see that the Lord is good for blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him." I want to encourage you to join me in taking God at His word. If you're going through a dark time at the moment, cry out to God, go and see Him and He will answer and maybe one day you'll be travelling through a dark time and the Holy Spirit will just remind you of what you heard today. You see it's no coincidence that you and I are together today. When He does, follow that call, open your heart. I sought the Lord and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears. /episode/index/show/32d04db5-1dff-4476-bc65-2e28e83b1760/id/34861985

Bad Fear, Good Fear // Dark Night - Bright Light, Part 4 03/13/2025

Bad Fear, Good Fear // Dark Night - Bright Light, Part 4 Mostly – we think of fear as being a bad thing. And often it is. But it’s also a protection mechanism. And “good fear” if I can call it that – helps us to make good choices. So – exactly how does that work? Fear is a funny thing, mostly we think of it as a negative thing. None of us wants to be afraid, I mean who wakes up in the morning and thinks to themselves, "Gee, I hope I get to be afraid today?" No, fear is something we don't look forward to but fear is one of those funny emotions that also helps to protect us. We've all seen a little child who will chase a football out onto the street without any sense of the fear about what might happen if a car or a truck or a bus happened to want to occupy that very same piece of real estate just at the time that they're there. An adult on the other hand has learned a healthy fear of that and so we hopefully would have a good look before we ran out onto the street. Well that makes sense, the same is true when, of most things that are dangerous, an adult has a healthy sense of fear. Perhaps a better way of putting it would be a respect for the consequences and so that acts, in effect, as a protection mechanism. So as it turns out there is a right and good sense of fear in life, so how does that apply to our relationship with God? This week on the program we're taking a bit of a look at the dark times we travel through in life sometimes and we've all had them. Sadness, loss, pain, you can look back and say, "Yep! That was one of those dark times." Maybe you're even in one of those times at the moment and we've spent some time with a man, King David of Israel that had more than his fair share of those dark times and I guess because he was a man with a close relationship to God, he learns some things about God and about that relationship in those dark times. He shares a bit of that in Psalm 34 which we're having a bit of a poke around this week. Psalm 34 is written with the benefit of hindsight, looking back at some dark times, the fearful times and rejoicing because what David discovers is that God was faithful to him in those difficult times, hopefully that sets a bit of the scene. Now let me read to you the first bit of the psalm right now, Psalm 34 beginning at verse 1: I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise will always be on my lips. My soul will boast in the Lord; let the afflicted hear and rejoice. Glorify the Lord with me, lets exalt His name together because I sought the Lord and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to Him are radiant; their faces are never covered in shame. This poor man called and the Lord heard him; He saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and He delivers them. Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him. Today I want to take a bit of a look at this fear element. It's a word that David uses twice in that short passage. Now I hate being afraid, I'm sure you're the same. I remember when I was in the army and we would be repelling out of helicopters or going over high things on obstacle courses. I have a fear of heights, I just don't like them, I had the opportunity to go parachuting once, I said, "you've got to be kidding me! I am not jumping out of a perfectly serviceable aeroplane." And as I said the other day, fear is what happens in those dark times too. In a broken marriage there’s a fear of the future, there's a financial fear. In retrenchment there’s a fear, will I ever get another job and we can lose hope? Fear is a big part of that, it kind of, well it immobilises us and obviously the times that David had been through he'd experienced that same fear that you and I do. Psalm 34, verse 4: I sought the Lord and He answered me, He delivered me from all my fears. In a sense that fear is a bad fear, that's the fear that God wants to deliver us from. We talked about that yesterday on the program and I can't tell you the number of times that, that I've been immobilised by that sort of fear and I've gone to God and just cried out to Him and He fills me with a peace that defies any human comprehension. Now I'm not someone who naturally gets afraid, I'm a fairly positive person 99.9% of the time but we all need God in those dark places with us to deliver us from that sort of fear but it's the other mention of fear in this little passage that I'd like to spend a few moments focusing on. You see this is one of the good fears that I was talking about at the beginning of our time together today. It's in verse 7 of Psalm 34, it says: The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him. You see, this is talking about the fear of God. Now it's easy to see this as one of those bad fears, "oh God is just this old grumpy old man with a big stick and a bunch of rules and old fashioned rule based religion. They start talking to me about the fear of God, see I knew I didn't need that sort of religion in my life," but that's not what it means. The fear of God or the fear of the Lord is quite different. Proverbs chapter 1, verse 7 says: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge but fools despise wisdom and discipline. See the word fear means two things, the first is the obvious meaning, 'to be petrified; to be afraid' it's the meaning we know well, terror. The second, the second is respect and reverence. You see my Dad when I was growing up, I had both of those fears for him. I knew that if I did something really bad, when he came home from work I'd get a belting. There were consequences. Now that's just the way it was but at the same time I respected him and he's passed away now but as I look back my greatest emotion is that one of respect and yes he did punish me sometimes and that's what happened but I didn't wander around all day in terror, it was a sense, a healthy sense of respect and knowing that if I crossed him, there were consequences and it's the same with God. That's what the fear of the Lord means. You know something; if you and I reject God, if we spend the rest of our lives walking against him, one day there will be a day of judgement and one day there will be hell to pay for that. That's that kind of fear but the other part of that fear is to have respect and a reverence, a right view of God. Yes He is my friend and He is my saviour but He's also a God who's powerful and mighty and awesome and sovereign. Love and respect go together and when we have that right relationship with Him, when we get Him in His rightful place in our lives something starts to happen. This is what David says in Psalm 34: God delivers us from our fears; He protects us. And Solomon in Proverbs chapter 1 that I just read before, He gives us wisdom: The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him. God protects us when we honour Him, when we respect Him and I want to encourage you to do something. In the dark times we travel through sometimes we just get tempted to behave badly. Sometimes we just say, "well God's not in that place and I'm just going to walk my other way", I want to encourage you in your dark time to fear God for "the angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him." And you know something; He delivers them. /episode/index/show/32d04db5-1dff-4476-bc65-2e28e83b1760/id/34861965

A Simple Choice // Dark Night - Bright Light, Part 3 03/12/2025

A Simple Choice // Dark Night - Bright Light, Part 3 When life is really tough and when you’ve lost hope and you’re afraid – you can either lie there, completely immobilised – or you can take a really simple, obvious step. Question is – in which direction? We all have choices in life. Sometimes we make good choices, more often than not those good choices have good outcomes and we can all look back and see some of the bad choices we've made and the consequences of those choices but you know the hardest choices to make are the ones we make in the dark. You know, in those dark times, the difficult times, the times when we're hurting so bad that our sense of balance and right and wrong and up and down is all out of kilter. The whole thing about that sort of darkness is that we can't see forward, we can't see back and it's such a difficult place to be. Well today, today we're going to look at a choice that we can make in those dark times that is always the right choice. When everything else has failed, when we don't quite know which way to turn, when even the good choices we made before now don't seem to hold any promise, there's one choice that we can make that always, always pays off. To look at that choice we're going to spend some time over the coming days with a man who had more of those dark times than most of us and he wrote a lot about it. The one place we're going to go is to take a look at what he learned and he records that in Psalm 34. It's an interesting psalm, it comes out of King David’s life and it's his praise for deliverance from a time of trouble. So it's a psalm written, if you like, with the benefit of hindsight. David's been in a tough dark place and his learned something, he's learned something about God in a dark time. Now we're not quite sure when that time was, the introduction to the psalm says: A psalm of David when he feigned madness before Abimelech so that he drove him out and he went away. Now we don't have any other historical information about that situation. Abimelech was a judge, a leader of Israel, Gideon’s son. The fact that we don't have the exact historical details however doesn't really matter. The fact that David had to engage in this deception tells us that it was a fearful time, it was a scary time, it was a time when he needed to escape. Now let’s have a listen to the first part of this psalm as David reflects on that dark time, it's Psalm 34, verses 1-8. This is what he writes: I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise will always be on my lips, my soul will boast in the Lord; let the afflicted hear and rejoice. Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt His name together. I sought the Lord and He answered me, He delivered me from all my fears. Those who look at Him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. This poor man called and the Lord heard him, He saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and He delivers them. Taste and see, the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him. See David is looking back on some hard times and he starts out by praising God for His faithfulness with the specific purpose of letting the rest of us know that God is faithful in the dark times. With a specific purpose, of us who are afflicted, being able to hear this and rejoice. This psalm was written for you and for me: My soul will boast in the Lord; let the afflicted hear and rejoice. You see David’s saying here, "You know why I'm writing this psalm? It's for you, if you're afflicted, if you're travelling through a dark and fearful time, you know what? Come and look at what God did for me." Glorify the Lord with me (says David) let us exalt His name together. In other words, so that you and I can rejoice together in our dark times we're getting the benefit of what David discovered in his darkness, in his fearful times and what he discovered is as profound as it is simple. Look at verse 4: I sought the Lord and He answered me, He delivered me from all my fears. Darkness and fear seem to immobilise us. Fear somehow stops us dead in our tracks, we just kind of sit there and we ache, and fear eats away at our hearts kind of like a quick spreading cancer and in that fear. Remember David was, as he had been many times before, in fear of his life. This was real fear, let me say it this way; deadly fear and in the midst of his deadly fear, he did the thing that he had learned to do over and over and over again all those times in his life when he'd been in danger. When he was on the run from King Saul for all those years he sought the Lord, he cried out to God, he said, "God, help!" The one thing we can forget to do when we're frozen by fear is to do exactly that, to seek God, to cry out to God and what a surprise; God answered him and delivered him from all his fears. I don't know about you but I can relate to that, in life and in ministry I come up against giants of opposition all the time and can I tell you, some days they scare me, seriously scare me and we have a choice; we can sit there and tremble in fear, we can be completely immobilised or we can spend time with God crying out to Him in prayer, reading His word, listening to Him and He always delivers me from my fears. David goes on to say this in verses 5 and 6 of that Psalm: Those who look to Him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. This poor man called and the Lord heard him, he saved him out of all his troubles. There it is, there's that "light" word; radiance: Those who look to Him are radiant. The Hebrew word that sits behind our English translation means literally "to beam" or "to burn with light". It's an over the top kind of word, it's not a glow or a flicker or just to shine but to beam and to burn with light. Those who look to Him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. See in those dark times we're down cast, we're in a sense ashamed if you like but David states this incredibly simple truth. He said: This poor man called and the Lord heard me. He saved me out of all my troubles. (He delivered me from all my fears) This is such a humble and beautiful picture isn't it? David, possibly the greatest king that Israel ever had, saw himself just as some poor man who cried out to God. Don't you love how the Bible is packed full of this, this real life stuff, this stuff that's right down where we are? The word of God meant for us, here and now right where the rubber hits the road. Light, radiance in our darkness and in our fear and all this out of a simple step that David took, so simple and yet when we fear for our lives, so difficult. I sought the Lord and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears. /episode/index/show/32d04db5-1dff-4476-bc65-2e28e83b1760/id/34861950

God is in the Light Business // Dark Night - Bright Light, Part 2 03/11/2025

God is in the Light Business // Dark Night - Bright Light, Part 2 When you’re travelling through those dark patches in life – as we all do – the most important thing you need to know is that God is in the Light business – and He’s right there in that dark place with you! You may hear me talk about the stars in the sky from time to time and that’s because they just fascinate me. There are so many and they're so huge and so far away, the universe is utterly incredible. The scientists tell us they estimate that there are at least a trillion, trillion stars, well what does that mean? Lets just start with a billion, do you know how long it would take to count to a billion, once each second; one, two, three. Well a billion seconds is 31 years, 251 days, 7 hours and 48 minutes. That’s a billion. Now a trillion is a thousand billion, that means that a trillion seconds is a thousand times as long. That makes a trillion seconds, 31,688 years, 32 days and few hours. Isn't that incredible? And that is just one trillion. Now a trillion times that 31,688 years and 32 days and a few hours which would make it a trillion, trillion, seconds is just an inconceivable length of time isn't it? And I'm just talking humble little ticks of a clock – seconds. But now look out at the universe and consider there are a trillion, trillion stars out there at least, massive balls of fire and they're just the ones we know about. You can tell I love astronomy and mathematics can't you, so why this dissertation on astro-physics? Well simply this; this week we're taking a look at the dark patches we can go through in life, the difficult times, the times of depression or fear or loss or loneliness or financial crisis or retrenchment or broken relationships or sickness. That list that is seemingly endless in life and when we go through those darkness’s they are so dark aren't they? If God is God, where is He in those dark times, huh? Exactly where is He? This series of programs is called, "Dark Night, Bright Light" and today, today I just want to establish that no matter how dark the darkness gets, God is in the "light" business. I'm just going to read you the first 5 verses of the first book of the Bible, Genesis. It's the beginning; this is what it says: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty and darkness was over the surface of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, "Let there be light,” and there was light and God saw that the light was good and He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light 'day' and the darkness He called 'night' and there was evening and there was morning. That was the first day. Now I might hear you say, "Well Berni that's well and good; you're talking about physical light here, that's fine but what about God shining His light into the darkness in my life?" We're going to talk about that shortly, the point that I'm making is this; creation tells us something about the Creator. You and I create different things because we're different. You might be artistic, you might be able to draw or to paint and so given the opportunity to be creative, you'd produce this stunning picture. Ha, I can't draw for peanuts. You might be really good with your hands, maybe building things or maybe crafting things. Well I have ten thumbs when it comes to that. So what we create tells us something about who we are, it's the same deal with God. You look at what He creates and it tells you something about who He is. In fact it's interesting to look at the order in which He creates, this God, and the first thing He creates, the very first thing is light because it was dark. That tells us something about God but what a light. We just think of the sun but that sun, as I said in the beginning of the program, is just one of an estimated trillion, trillion stars. In the greatest understatement in the Bible Moses writes in Genesis chapter 1, verse 16: God made two great lights; the greater was to govern the day, the lesser was to govern the night. He also made the stars. Ha, also made the stars. God is seriously into light and it tells us something about who He is and when you look at Him shining light into our lives there are so many references throughout the Bible about Him wanting to do that. I'm just going to look at 3 very briefly right now. The first is Ezekiel chapter 10 in verse 4: Then the glory of the Lord rose up from above the cherubim and moved to the threshold of the temple and the cloud filled the temple and the court was full of the radiance of the glory of God. Isaiah, in chapter 60 verse 19 says: The sun will no more be your light by day nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you at night for the Lord will be your everlasting light and your God will be your glory. And perhaps my favourite of all where Paul seems to bring it all together in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 6. He says: For its the very same God who said "Let light shine out of darkness" that made His light to shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Can you see why I've called this little series, "Dark Night, Bright Light". Over these coming days I believe we're going to be transformed by Gods word about darkness and light. I'm going to share with you again from my darkness; you know in life we all have them. Thirteen years ago I had a major one; I lost everything that was dear to me. I guess in life we end up with one or two or three major ones but then we have other smaller ones along the way that don't feel that small when we're going through them. Real pressure at work, it gets us down or interest rates go up and we can't afford our houses anymore and we have to sell. You know all that stuff. And every time I have been through one of those darkness’s, every time when I've turned to Jesus and poured my heart out to Him, His gentle light has began to glow in my heart. The longer things went on because we have to travel through that stuff, the darker it became out there the more brightly His love and His joy and His peace would shine in my life. The sun will be no more your light by day nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you by night for the Lord will be your everlasting light and your God will be your glory. Light is such a wonderful way to describe what happens when we turn to God in our darkness. I can't find any other word to put it than "light"; a warmth and a brilliance and a radiance that shines in our lives. If you've just been through darkness, if you're going through one right now, if you're going to go through one in the future the word of God is going to shine a light into that place. Dark Night, Bright Light. /episode/index/show/32d04db5-1dff-4476-bc65-2e28e83b1760/id/34861935

Afraid of the Dark // Dark Night - Bright Light, Part 1 03/10/2025

Afraid of the Dark // Dark Night - Bright Light, Part 1 When you’re travelling through those dark patches in life – what you discover so often is that you’re afraid of the dark. Fear is a big deal in hard times. And each one of us needs to know what to do about it. We're starting a new series of messages on the program this week, a series that I've called, "Dark Night, Bright Light". I wonder what the word dark or darkness means to you? Darkness has all sorts of connotations when we apply it to our own lives. I remember when I was a young boy, even probably well into my teenage years, I was truly afraid of the dark. At night after dinner in the dining room in the house where we lived it was what seemed like a long corridor to my bedroom, it was only 8 or 9 metres but when the corridor was dark, I tell you, it was a long scary way and I was afraid to walk from the light dining room into that dark corridor to my dark bedroom. Now we were blessed because there was a light switch at either end of the corridor, at the dining room end and at the end where my bedroom was and I always, always used that light switch. Now don't get me wrong, we lived in a safe part of town and the house was secure so there was no logical or rational reason to be afraid of the dark, I just was and it was a very real fear. It seems that darkness and fear often go together in life. Whether we're young or old the truth be known we actually need both, light and dark in this world. I love it when the sun goes down and it's time to go to sleep and again, when the sun comes up in the morning and it's time to get on with life. It's a pattern we live by, it's a cadence, a pattern of life but imagine if it were only ever dark how awful that would be. In some countries of course, far north and far south, there are many months of darkness in winter. In life, darkness and fear, well they seem to be such common bedfellows. I guess that’s because in the dark we can't see what's coming at us. I remember once when I was in the army and we were on exercise in a rainforest and the canopy of this rainforest was so incredibly thick that it was pitch black at night, you couldn't even see your hand 6 inches in front of your face. And in that sort of darkness you can't see what’s coming at you, you can't see where you're going so darkness is a scary place sometimes. Now let’s take a look at our own lives. We can look back on the dark times, those periods that we'd rather forget, maybe a broken relationship or sickness or the death of a loved one, real financial difficulties. Maybe you've been through a war and you've seen people killed or you've been in prison. Perhaps you've seen everything you worked for so hard over so many years just go down the drain or someone’s hurt you incredibly deeply, someone you trusted. Perhaps you've been through a time of depression or real loneliness or working so hard you just don't feel that you have a life. The list just goes on and on and on, life has its dark times doesn't it? Maybe you're going through one right now, maybe, who knows, there's one right around the next corner or next year or the year after that. Dark times, well they're like part of a fabric of our lives as much as we'd rather they weren't there and that’s why we're kicking off this little series over the next couple of weeks called, "Dark Night, Bright Light" because light is the opposite of darkness and when we're travelling through those dark times, light is the very thing we need. The problem is it can be so hard to find, so hard to believe in or hope for. You might only experience in those dark times, those lonely times, those times where I felt betrayed, the times of deep distress, it's a fear that’s debilitating. It's like you don't even have the strength to lift up your head and look towards God. And hope. Well, when we lose hope it's a devastating thing because there's no sense of there being a future. I once read a book about a holocaust survivor, Victor Frankel and he makes the point so powerfully when he recalls an experience from the concentration camp. Have a listen to what he writes: The prisoner who has lost faith in the future, his future was doomed. With his loss of belief in his future he also lost his spiritual hold. He let himself decline and became subject to mental and physical decay. Usually this happened quite suddenly in the form of a crisis, the symptoms of which were familiar to the experienced camp inmate. We all feared this moment, not for ourselves which would have been pointless but for our friends. Usually it began with a prisoner refusing one morning to get dressed and wash and to go out on the parade ground. No entreaties, not blows, no threats had any affect; he just lay there hardly moving. If this crisis was brought about by an illness he refused to be taken to the sick bay or to do anything to help himself. He simply gave up, there he remained lying in his own excrement and nothing bothered him anymore. It's extreme but you recognise it, it happens to all of us sometimes. We give up, we have this sense that there's no future, no hope, just darkness, just the same. Why have we spent so much time describing the darkness today? I guess for me it helps to put words around it, it helps to describe what it is because this is something that we can all relate to. Somehow we think it's just us but actually everyone goes through dark periods in their life, everyone. I have and you have and there are some real dark ones and then there are some that aren't quite so deep but they still rob us of the joy of living. Tomorrow what we're going to see is that God, God is in the light business. Today I just want to share one passage with you from His word, the Old Testament book of Isaiah chapter 9 and verse 2: The people walking in the darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned. If you're walking in darkness at the moment I have a message for you from God, He plans to shine a light into that place. I remember the darkest days of my life, 13 years ago now, when I was completely alone. The darkness gets so inky black; the hole is so deep you can't imagine how you could possibly survive. In the middle of all that a man, a pastor, a man called Ted Keating shared a message of Gods hope with me just the way I'm sharing with you today and from that little message I turned around and gave my life to Jesus and in the midst of that darkness a light began to shine, a light that was so bright, so warm. Later, later I discovered that Jesus once said: I am the light of the world. Well, He got that right; just the way Isaiah puts it: The people walking in the darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned. /episode/index/show/32d04db5-1dff-4476-bc65-2e28e83b1760/id/34861905

Win Some, Lose Some // It's Time to Take the Promised Land, Part 10 03/07/2025

Win Some, Lose Some // It's Time to Take the Promised Land, Part 10 Sometimes – we look at God’s promises with a “win some, lose some” kind of attitude. But God’s promises aren’t hit and miss. They’re promises that never fail. So – why do we lose some? Yesterday on the program we looked at the fact which turns out to be blindingly obvious that if we want to take hold of God’s promises we have to do it His way. It’s an awesome thing when we finally get a handle on what it means to call Jesus the Lord of our Lives. Not just believing in Him as a kind of, you know, insurance policy for eternity, just in case. But living our whole lives for Him. Yeah, there’s a cost, but it’s when we lay down our lives and put Him in the driver’s seat in every department that all of a sudden we find ourselves laying hold of His promises. In effect, living the in the Promised Land. A land of peace and joy in our hearts even though we go through battles and trials. The problem is, every now and then when the promises of God are flowing in our lives, we think we can sneak something in, just something little. A compromise here, a white lie there, some little dishonest gain here. Just little things. I mean, by and large I’m playing God’s game why should he care. It’s only a little thing! King Solomon was one of the wisest men who ever lived and he wrote this. You can read it in the Song of Solomon in the Old Testament Chapter 2, verse 14. He said: Catch for us the foxes for the little foxes are the ones that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in the bloom. In other words, it’s the little foxes that ruin the vine, even when it’s in bloom, even when things are looking rosy, it’s the little foxes that rob us of the fruit. We’re going back today to the story of Joshua and Israel and the Promised Land. Centuries before this story Abraham had been promised by God, this land that we now know as Israel, the land flowing with milk and honey. And Israel spent centuries in slavery and oppression in Egypt and then forty years in the desert on the Exodus. There were lots of trials and tests and finally they make it to the Promised Land. The promise of God to Joshua is this: I have given you every place where you set your foot as I promised Moses. Your territory will extend from the dessert to Lebanon from the great river Euphrates all the way through the Hittite country to the great sea on the west. No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses so I’ll be with you. I will never leave you or forsake you. Great. So they honour God, they cross over, they destroy Jericho. It’s a miracle, this fortified city. They march around it for seven days blowing their trumpets and all of a sudden the walls come tumbling down. Not just some fable. This actually happened. And God gave them instructions. With Jericho, when they attacked they weren’t to take any plunder or booty. Why? Well God doesn’t tell us why, He just says this to them. Joshua Chapter 6, verse 18: Keep away from the devoted things so that you will not bring about your own destruction by taking any of them. Otherwise you’ll make the camp of Israel liable to destruction and bring trouble on it. All the silver and gold that you find and the articles of bronze and iron are sacred to the Lord and must go into His treasury. Well, fair enough, but you know something God wouldn’t notice if I just took one little thing for myself would He? I mean, surely not. I know He said, ‘Don’t take it so you won’t bring trouble on yourself’, but just one thing, it’s so shiny, so attractive, just one thing. Ever been there? I have. It’s called temptation. God’s way or my way. Clear choice. And so often it seems like such a little thing. No one else will know. God wouldn’t mind. We rationalize. We are masters at this stuff. But a man called Achan took some stuff. No one else knew. Joshua didn’t know. He just went on to the next battle after Jericho. After all, the Lord had promised to be with Him and never to forsake him. In Joshua chapter 7, verse 1 this is what it says: But the Israelites had acted unfaithfully in regard to the devoted things. Achan of the tribe of Judah took some of them so the Lord’s anger burned against Israel. Now Joshua sent men from Jericho to a place called Ai which is near Bethaven to the east of Bethel, and told them, ‘Go up and spy out the region’. So the men went up and spied out Ai. When they returned to Joshua they said, ‘Not all the people will have to go up against Ai. Send 2,000 or 3,000 men to take it and do not weary the people for only a few men are there’. So about 3,000 men went up there and they were routed by the men of Ai who killed about 36 of them. They chased the Israelites from the city gates as far as the stone quarries and struck them down the slopes. At this the heart of the people melted and became like water.” Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell face down to the ground before the Ark of the Lord and remained there till evening. The elders of Israel did the same thing and sprinkled dust on their heads and Joshua said, ‘God, why did you ever bring this people across the Jordan to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us. If only we had been content to stay on the other side of the Jordan. Oh, Lord, what can I say now that Israel has been routed by its enemies? The Canaanites and the other people of the country will hear about this and they will surround us and wipe out our name from all the earth. What then will you do for your great name?’ The Lord said, ‘Joshua, stand up. What are you doing down on your face. Israel has sinned. They have violated my covenant which I commanded them to keep. They have taken some of the devoted things. They have stolen, they have lied. They have put them in their own possession. This is why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies. They turn their backs and run because they have been made liable to destruction. I will not be with you anymore unless you destroy whatever among you is devoted to destruction”. See they did all the same things they did in Jericho when they got to Ai. In Jericho they won and in Ai they lost. Why? Because of that one small sin. That hidden compromise. This one little thing robbed them of the promise of God. Let me say it again. This one little thing robbed them of the promise of God. Wake up! How many want to be walking in the Promised Land. The success of what God’s called them to do, but sneak these little compromises in along the way. Come on! They rob us of the promises of God. Why did God make up that stupid rule? Don’t take the gold or the silver. To test their obedience. To sift the chaff from the wheat. When Joshua dealt with this Achan brutally – had him stoned to death – God set things right. In our lives, in yours and mine, that’s what we need to do with those little compromises. Deal with them brutally. There is no room for compromise because those little hidden compromises rob us of the promises of God. If you’ve been sitting and waiting for God to deliver on his promises and they’re not coming, they’re not coming, they’re not coming. What is He saying to you right now about the Achan’s – the little foxes – the little, seemingly inconsequential compromise in your life. Get it out. Deal with it like Joshua did. As soon as he’d done that God gave him a plan. They took Ai and victory returned. God’s promises returned. Come on! God’s promises are not a case of win some, lose some. God delivers on each and every promise. We rob ourselves of the promises when we let the little foxes creep in. Get rid of them! Decide once and for all, I want to live in God’s Promised Land. I want to be successful at the things that God calls me to do. I want to experience the miracles of God in my life. I want Jesus as Lord of my life. What do you think? That God’s promise is worth it. /episode/index/show/32d04db5-1dff-4476-bc65-2e28e83b1760/id/34861860

My Way or the Highway // It's Time to Take the Promised Land, Part 9 03/06/2025

My Way or the Highway // It's Time to Take the Promised Land, Part 9 Most of us like to be in control of our lives. But at the same time – we’d like to experience the promises of God. Problem is – those two things don’t always go together. It turns out that there’s only one way into God’s Promised Land. I have a confession to make, I used to be very much the "my way or the highway" kind of guy and every now and then the attitude still raises its ugly head. So it was a major thing for me to hand my life over to God. Not just a kind of "believe in Jesus from a distance" but to live my life for Him, to truly call Him the Lord of my life. And there's a big difference. What I've discovered is that on the one hand you have to give up some things if you want Jesus to be the Lord of your life. But on the other, I can do so much more because instead of having to do everything in my own strength, He shows up and does miracle after miracle in every department of my life. And I look back on the journey and I think, "wow! I could never had done those things." But our natural instinct is to do it our way, to be in charge and in control. Problem is that job belongs to God, I mean its hard work so what is it? What do we have to do to make Jesus the Lord of my life? Over these last few weeks we've been looking at taking hold of the promises of God, in particular through the eyes of Joshua. He was the leader of Israel right at the end of those forty years they spent in the desert on the exodus and, and there he was after the forty years and they were just about to cross over into the Promised Land. The Book of Joshua records the history, the promise of God to Abraham and then to Moses and then to Joshua was that: Everywhere where your foot will tread I have already given to you. And Joshua sent some spies across the check out the land and we looked at that yesterday on the program. They did the normal military things you'd expect a commander to do. Now, now comes time to cross over the Jordan River and they're going to have so many battles. You see there are cities and nations and kings and armies in that Promised Land and they're going to have to take the Promised Land. It would have been so easy for Josh to say 'well I'm in charge here, it's my way or the highway' but what Joshua did next, well there were some pretty amazing things he did, four in all and it tells us who was really in charge. The first thing, the first thing he did is he sent his officers through the camp to tell his people this: When you see the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your God being carried by the priests then you shall set out from your place. Follow it so that you may know the way that you should go for you have not passed this way before. You can read that in Joshua chapter 3. In other words the Ark of the Covenant was where the presence of God rested. He put God in the lead; he put God in the driver’s seat at the head of the procession. The second thing he did were, were twelve stones, this is pretty amazing, Joshua chapter 4, verse 4. Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe and he said to them, ‘Go over before the Ark of the Lord your God in the middle of the Jordan River. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you "What do these stones mean?" You'll be able to tell them how the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord.’ You see, what happened was, the Jordan obviously had a whole bunch of water in it, and for Israel to cross over from where they were into the Promised Land through the Jordan, God did exactly what He did when they fled out of Egypt into the desert. He stopped the waters from flowing so they could cross through on the dry land. And Joshua says, "Let’s take these twelve stones and let’s build a memorial, an altar that honours God, a monument that he did this. God did this, He achieved this. Let’s recognise His goodness for generations to come." That's awesome; again you see God is in the front of Joshua's thinking. The third thing he did, well this was really bizarre. He circumcised the nation. Ooh it makes my eyes water. I mean it seems bizarre to us and even in their context I think it was a pretty big call. Circumcision of the men was a sign of the covenant relationship between God and His people. What do I mean by covenant? God made a promise, God promised them the Promised Land, He promised them peace, He promised them prosperity if only they would do what God had told them to do. And the way that that happened, way back in Abraham’s time centuries before, was that Abraham went and had all the males in his household circumcised. It was a sign of the relationship and the promise between God and His people. And while they'd been out in the exodus in the desert all the adults who had left Egypt through the Red Sea died and there's a whole new generation and that generation hadn't been circumcised. The law said that they had to be circumcised because it was a symbol of their relationship with God and God said to Joshua: Make flint knives and circumcise the lot. You see here they are, they've been in slavey in Egypt for centuries, they spend forty years in the desert, they're about to cross into the Promised Land, it's almost there in the day, what happens? Joshua says, "Well, just one minute, stop, whoa. All the boys are going to be circumcised, all the men, all the boys. We're going to be circumcised." And so they then had to hang around after this painful thing and wait for them all to heal. And the fourth thing is they celebrated the Passover. Okay, must be ready to go now, time to, time to go, let’s cross over. No, no its time to celebrate the Passover. Remember how forty years before God had taken them out of Egypt through the Passover miracle, look back and remember God’s goodness. He sends the Ark of the Covenant out first, he picks up stones as a memorial, he has everybody circumcised, he celebrates the Passover. Not things that you or I would do today but they all said one thing. Sure, we want to take the Promised Land but God comes first. The Ark of the Covenant: God will go first, we'll follow Him, He takes the lead. The stones: let’s put a marker here in faith to remember for generations to come the miracle that God performed to bring us into the Promised Land. Circumcision: let’s get our relationship right with God. Passover: let’s honour God for all that He's done. See here's the crunch, Israel had a huge promise ahead of them but they were going to take hold of that promise by honouring God first. Not my way or the highway: God’s way, whatever the circumstances, whatever the outcome – His way. It's the same for us today. So many people believe in Jesus, they want to lay hold of His promises for their lives but we want to do it our way. We sing songs, 'Jesus is Lord', is He really? Are we really prepared to do it His way? No little compromises, no little shortcuts, no 'I'll forget about Him and not pray today', no 'Oh well I don't have to read His word, the Bible today'. WAKE UP! God’s promises only happen one way, His way. Jesus said: I am the way, the truth and the life. No-one will come to the Father except through me. This radical edgy saviour, wasn't into pampering Himself, He did it His Fathers way. There's only one way to the Promised Land – Jesus. /episode/index/show/32d04db5-1dff-4476-bc65-2e28e83b1760/id/34861840

Spies in the Land // It's Time to Take the Promised Land, Part 8 03/05/2025

Spies in the Land // It's Time to Take the Promised Land, Part 8 Sometimes God’s promises can be a bit confusing. Do you just sit back, believe and wait for Him to deliver? Or do you have some part to play – in taking hold of those promises? Discerning that, how much God wants you to do and how much He wants you to leave to Him, isn’t always easy is it? We've been talking the last couple of weeks about taking hold of God’s wonderful and outrageous promises in our lives. Not easy sometimes and it seems that we can face uphill battle after uphill battle and we're left wondering, "is this really what God’s promises are all about?" But my hunch is when God makes promises He means us to believe them and press through those battles like we believe them. A bit like Joshua when he was about to lead Israel into the Promised Land after centuries of slavery in Egypt and forty years wandering through the desert on the exodus, standing on the banks of the Jordan ready to cross over into that Promised Land. As we've seen over the last couple of weeks God told Joshua that there'd be a lot of battles but He also reminded him that this was the Promised Land. Then, then Joshua did something that's bothered me for a long time, he sent some spies across the river to check it out and there in lies my dilemma. You see here's the dilemma for me, on the one hand we're supposed to trust in God, without faith it's impossible to please God. And look at what God said to Joshua about the battles that they were going to face when they headed into the Promised Land. He said: No-one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I'll be with you. I will never leave you or forsake you. Be strong and courageous because you will lead these people to inherit the land that I swore to their forefathers to give them. Be strong and courageous, don't be terrified, don't be discouraged because the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. Now you get a promise like that from God and that's serious stuff. God is calling you into a difficult place but encouraging you with His promise and Joshua had a decision to make. To step over the Jordan, to head down the path, to encounter the battles, trust God, battle his way through, keep going or turn away and not cross over into the Promised Land. But here's what Joshua did, you see he hears the promises of God but before he headed off he sent some spies across the river into the Promised Land to check it all out. The first city they came to was Jericho, it tells us in Joshua chapter 2: Then Joshua secretly sent two spies telling them, ‘Go look over the land especially Jericho.’ So they went and they entered the house of a prostitute called Rahab and they stayed there. Now come on, is that really trusting God? God comes along and promises you the land, He promises you He's going to be with you, He promises you that He's already given you the land and no-one will be able to stand against you and then it's almost like Joshua doesn't trust Him. He sends out spies and wait for this, they go and shack up with a prostitute. Now the rest of the story is they check out the land, the King finds out that they're there and comes to try and kill them and Rahab, this prostitute helps them flee and they promised to keep her safe when they come and attack Jericho. When they came back to Joshua on the other side of the Jordan they reported this, they said: The Lord has surely given the whole land into our hands. All the people are melting in fear because of us. You see this bothered me for a long time, why did Joshua do that? Why, why didn't he just trust God and go and do it? And why didn't God get upset with Joshua for sending spies and checking it out for himself? They're all good questions. The answer came to me one day. I was reading a story in the New Testament something that happened centuries later. The Apostle Peter is in jail, he's being persecuted and an angel comes and springs him out of jail. The angel woke him up in the middle of the night and said this: 'Get up quickly’ and the chains fell off Peter and the angel said to him, ‘Fasten your belt, put on you sandals’ and Peter did. ‘Wrap you cloak around you and follow me.’ Peter did. And the gates swung open and Peter got out. You can read about it in Acts chapter 12 beginning at verse 6. See, the angel didn't dress Peter because he could do that for himself. The angel did the miracles that Peter couldn't do, the angel got rid of the chains, the angel flung the gates open. For me I'm a doer, I plan, I execute, I achieve, I've been like that all my life. I go and get it, classic type A personality and the struggle for me is that God comes along and promises me all these things that my whole life had eluded me. Relationships, peace and joy and a quiet calm delight, this Promised Land in my heart, this Kingdom of God in my heart. And I had a choice. Either I try to do this in my own strength, well that would never work, or I let God have the drivers seat, I let Him be in control and I follow after Him in faith and obviously its the latter, obviously that’s the right thing to do but you know something, we can become spiritual couch potatoes doing that. God calls us to do our bit too. Joshua received promises from God, this Promised Land, "I'm going to give it to you. No-one will stand against you; don't be afraid I'm with you." So Joshua receives those promises from God and then he sent spies ahead, why? Because any good military operation always does forward reconnaissance to see what's out there to plan ahead. It's an important principle here. Joshua received the promises of God, he had to cross into the Promised Land and to do the things he could and should do, to plan, to look ahead, to organise the people and the armies to get them through and rely on the miracles of God that only God could do. Imagine moving a million or so people into this land, moving huge armies, what a massive logistical operation. God just didn't wave a wand. Joshua and his leaders had to plan and execute that and so Joshua sends a spy, he spies out the land, they come back with the right report, he crosses over into the Promised Land and then you can read the story for yourself. Jericho was a fortified city, it was almost impregnable and instead of attacking it they listened to God. God told Joshua 'just march around it for 7 days in a row blowing your horns and the walls will fall down.' You know something, the walls did fall down, God did the thing that Joshua and his people couldn't do. You see the problem with us is we receive the promises of God and then we expect it all to go smoothly and miraculously, never thinking ahead, never doing a forward reconnaissance to look at what's likely to happen. There are going to be obstacles, there are going to be battles. You know as we follow after the promises of God the enemy and the world are going to come against us and we need to get our minds around those things, we need to know what to expect, we need to use the brains God has given us and then rely on the miracles that He has to do along the way to get us in the Promised Land. Now for me, every day, that takes wisdom, that's why I pray each morning, that's why I spend time every morning with God because I'm prone to do a whole bunch of things in my own strength and sometimes I get tired and dejected and I expect God to do it all. They are two ends of the spectrum but somewhere in the middle, somewhere in God’s wisdom, somewhere in God’s blessing is the right answer. God expects us to do the things that we can do and then as we put our faith in Him, God shows up with the miracles to do the things we couldn't possibly do. /episode/index/show/32d04db5-1dff-4476-bc65-2e28e83b1760/id/34861815

Prospering in God's Word // It's Time to Take the Promised Land, Part 7 03/04/2025

Prospering in God's Word // It's Time to Take the Promised Land, Part 7 When you hear the word “prosperity” it conjures up all sorts of images doesn’t it, not all of them positive. And yet, it’s a word that God uses rather a lot. The question is – what does He mean by it and how do you lay hold of it? I don't think that there’s a person on this earth that doesn't want to be prosperous. The question is, exactly what does that mean? What is prosperity? When I put on a few pounds in weight and my aunty sees me, she says in her thick European accent, "My you're looking prosperous." Hmm, I don't think that’s what it means. When we think of prosperity we think of wealth and money and a nice house and a car and all that stuff, but when God thinks of prosperity He's thinking about so much more. He's thinking about what’s going on in our hearts and He's thinking about success in doing the things He's called us to do and achieving the things He's called us to achieve. Despite all the battles we're going through, despite all the opposition. In fact it's interesting to look at what God says to Israel’s leader Joshua, about prosperity and success just before he leads Israel over the Jordan to cross into the Promised Land. There is Israel, they've spent the last forty years wandering around the desert in the exodus and before that centuries in slavery in Egypt and they're about to cross over into a land that God promised to Abraham centuries before, that's why it's called the Promised Land and God is expecting some stiff opposition for Joshua and his people when they cross over the Jordan to take that Promised Land. How do we know that? Because when God talks to Joshua just before he crosses over, He says this: Be strong and courageous because you will lead these people to take the land that I swore to their forefathers to give them. Be strong and very courageous... And then later He says: Be strong and courageous. Don't be terrified; don't be discouraged for I am with you where ever you go. You know I always think it's a worry when God says to me, "Well Berni, you know you need to be strong and courageous. Don't be terrified, don't be discouraged." You think, "Oh, oh, this is not going to be pleasant." And that’s often the way you know, as we decide to lay hold of the promises of God in our hearts, things so often get a whole bunch worse before they get better. You know Jesus says, "Peace. My peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you." And we think, "Yeah man, that’s what I want. There's a promise from God that I want. I want God’s peace in my life." You know, Jesus promised that to His disciples just before He was about to be crucified. It was a dangerous and fearful and terrible time, a time of pain and loss and fear for the disciples even fear for their own lives. So He explains what He's on about, He says this: My peace I leave with you and my peace I give to you. I don't give these things to you the way the world does, don't let your hearts be troubled and do not let them be afraid. You see we often have to deal with obstacles and fears to lay a hold of the promises of God in our lives. I do, you do, in fact we all do. And those times are the times when we grow. When we understand that this is the reality and the promises of God stand in that reality, it doesn't matter what obstacles there are, it doesn't matter how many battles there are ahead. You see Israel, when they crossed into the Promised Land had to fight battle after battle after battle with the people that were already there. So what's our part in all of this? God makes a promise, how do we respond to that promise? Well God said to Joshua: Be careful to obey all the law that my servant Moses gave you. Don't turn from it from the right or the left so that you will be successful where ever you go. Meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do everything that's written in it. Then, then you'll be prosperous and successful. The picture here is that God has spoken, He's spoken through the Word of God, through the Bible, through His Son Jesus and there's this beautiful picture of meditating on what God’s saying day and night so that it becomes a part of us. So that we start living our lives God’s way, then God says, "You’ll be prosperous and successful." Now I don't think that all means we're going to be millionaires or billionaires, I don't think that at all, some people will be others won't be. Prosperous and successful in what God has called us to. You see He was talking to Joshua; He had called Joshua to lead Israel, God’s chosen people into the Promised Land. That's what Joshua was getting prosperous and successful at doing. Now I know so many people who believe in God, who believe in Jesus, they own a Bible, "Well I think it's somewhere, it's up in the cupboard or it's in the bedside table or it's somewhere gathering dust." I want to tell you something about the word of God; I would be a nervous wreck by now if I didn't spend time in God’s word every day. I mean, what I do is I'm in the front line of ministry, my job is leading people into the Promised Land through these programs, through doing what I'm doing right now. Helping people to take a hold of God’s promise in their lives. And I have to tell you something, the devil is not happy about that, the world is not always happy about that, even other Christians don't always understand that call. As God’s grown this ministry over these last five years, you know we started recording these programs five years ago and there wasn't a single radio station that had committed to airing them, nothing, just a call from God, just a promise from Him written on my heart by His spirit. And today these programs go to air on over 700 stations in 80 countries and they're listened to by millions of people each week and you think, "Wow, that's fantastic, that's great!" And it is but do you have any idea how many trials and battles and oppositions and lack of funds and do you have any idea how hard that was along the way and some days still continues to be? We all have to go through this stuff in our lives and whatever God’s called us to. God’s called you to something entirely different to me, that’s because we're different and when we're going through that stuff there’s a temptation to do it our way or in our strength or to make compromises or pull over and to stop. The promise of God to Joshua was, "Get my Word into you, meditate on it day and night. Soak it in, drink it in, feed on it, let it never depart from you and that's where your prosperity and success will be." In His word God reminds us of His promises; His spirit comes and writes them on our hearts. What soldier would walk out onto a battle field without a weapon? The apostle Paul, when he was talking about the 'armour of God' in Ephesians chapter 6 in the New Testament talks about "The sword of the Spirit which is the word of God." And there are so many people who believe in God, who believe Jesus, who walk out onto that spiritual battle field every day and leave God’s word in the cupboard to gather dust and wonder why they suffer defeat after defeat - ah der! That's nuts! When God makes a promise, as He did through Jesus to give us an abundant wonderful life that promise is a done deal. People, things, circumstances will come against us but if we lay a hold of the promises of God in our hearts, just in a simple imperfect faith, they won't be able to stand against us and God will never leave us or forsake us and when we let His word reign in our hearts, His success and His prosperity will chase us down. /episode/index/show/32d04db5-1dff-4476-bc65-2e28e83b1760/id/34861790

Courage in the Promises // It's Time to Take the Promised Land, Part 6 03/03/2025

Courage in the Promises // It's Time to Take the Promised Land, Part 6 When the chips are down, when things are against you – gee it can be hard to hang onto the promises of God. Really hard. That’s why He makes promises in a way that – well, puts courage in your heart. So many things in life promise so much but in the end so many of them fail to deliver and my hunch is that, for many people, it kind of sums up their experience of God. This Jesus, I mean He promises so much, peace and joy and a life lived in all of it's abundance but somehow the experience can fall short of the promise. Must have felt a little bit like that for Israel after centuries in slavery and forty years wandering through the desert. They were about to cross over into the land that God promised Abraham all those centuries before, the Promised Land. But as they looked ahead into that Promised Land what they saw was a whole bunch of tribes and nations already occupying it. There'd have to be battle after battle to take the Promised Land, could this really be one of the promises of God, I mean really? Well you know, Israel was there, they were on the banks of the Jordan on one side and they were about to cross over into this Promised Land, they'd spent the last forty years wandering through the desert on the exodus. Somehow kind of believing, very imperfectly I might add, of a promise made to Abraham centuries before that God would give this land to Abraham's descendants. And here they were, Israel, Abraham’s descendants, and they looked across the river and they saw all these people and tribes and kings and fortified cities and armies. On the one hand they wanted to believe in God’s promise but on the other hand they're looking at the reality thinking, "wow, how is that ever going to happen?" You know God calls us to His Promised Land here and now today. It promises all the way through the Bible about a relationship with God. Jesus says in John chapter 10, verse 10, he says: The thief you know only comes to steal, kill and destroy but I've come that you might have life in all its abundance. Well think about that for a minute. Look at our lives and look around at what’s going on, can we have a really abundant life? Again, Jesus says in Matthew chapter 13, he says: The kingdom of God is like a treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it he hid it again and in his joy he went and sold all that he had to buy that field. Wow, you know God’s kingdom, God’s Promised Land is like … well it's like a treasure. When we give our lives to Jesus lock, stock and barrel He invites us into a land of promises and they're promises so different to what the world promises. You see His Promised Land isn't a physical land or physical wealth and all that other stuff, it's quite different. Once He was asked by some religious leaders of the day, when this Kingdom of God would come and Jesus said: The Kingdom of God doesn't come with your careful observation. People won't say 'Oh here it is or there it is'. No, he said, the kingdom of God is within you. The Promised Land isn't something out there, it's not a new house or a new car or a new job. The Promised Land, the Kingdom of God is in our hearts. And so often we feel like Joshua, standing on the threshold looking back at what's been and looking forward and wanting to believe the promises of God but you look around and some days they're so hard to believe. I want to talk right now about taking courage in the promises of God. This is so important because you know what we do, you and I, we focus on the things we can see. We focus on the broken relationships or the lack of money or all the problems we have in our lives and we think, "Oh, I don't think God’s promises can ever come". But God calls us to set our eyes on the things that are above, to set our eyes on heavenly things. Look again at what God said to Joshua about His Promised Land: I have given you every place where you will set your foot as I promised to Moses. Isn't it interesting. He uses the past tense, actually it’s the Hebrew perfect tense, "something that is done and completed". "I have given you every place where you will set your foot …" As far as God was concerned the Promised Land was a done deal, it was given and when God gives, no-one can block that. That's God’s perspective. And yet our perspective is to focus on all the obstacles and the enemies and the fears and the doubts and the problems. Can I tell you something? When I became a Christian about 15 years ago I had so much dysfunction in my life I can't begin to tell you. And one of the first promises of God that I heard was that one we talked about before in John chapter 10, verse 10 where Jesus said: I have come that you may have life in all its fullness and its abundance. It's a promise that He wrote on my heart and somehow I just decided to believe it like a child. Jesus came because He wants me to have an abundant life. Now if I looked at me and my life and the predicaments and all the pain and the trouble I was in, I had no right to believe that promise from Jesus but somehow God’s word, well the Holy Spirit comes along and it's like a gift. He lifts our eyes up to see heavenly things. And I believed in that promise so imperfectly and I had to go through some things. And I was afraid some days and I was lonely some days and some days I wanted to give up. But at the end of the day I decided to believe. What Jesus did for you and me on the cross was to remove all the sin, all the reproach of the past and open up a door into an abundant, outrageous and wonderful relationship with God. It is a done deal, past completed, it is finished. The abundant life has been purchased for us on that cross and now, now’s time to walk in it and the point of what God said to Joshua was that there will be battles: I've given you every place where you will set your foot as I promised Moses. No-one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life because as I was with Moses so I will be with you. I'll never leave you or forsake you. You see, God’s promise is a done deal. Sure people are going to come against us, things are going to come against us, circumstances are going to come against us and God says, ‘I'll never leave you or forsake you.’ The promise is a done deal and that is a completely different way of looking at things isn't it? Completely different. For me and my life over these last dozen and a half or so years and every day here and now, the courage I have to face the people and the obstacles are the promises of God. Because when God promises something nobody, but nobody can take it away. The focus of the promise is our relationship with God, the peace and the joy that flows from that. All the other stuff, the relationships and the health and the money, all that’s temporary, that will come and go but what will last forever is our relationship with God through Jesus Christ. And it's an act of faith to take courage in the promises of God. Because when God promises something, when Jesus says, "I have come for you to have an abundant life in all it's fullness", you know something that’s a promise and we lay hold of that promise through faith by believing in the word of God. /episode/index/show/32d04db5-1dff-4476-bc65-2e28e83b1760/id/34861765

On the Threshold // It's Time to Take the Promised Land, Part 5 02/28/2025

On the Threshold // It's Time to Take the Promised Land, Part 5 When you’re on the threshold of something good, maybe something God’s promised you, the truth is, you expect it to be all sweetness and light, and yet too often, right then, it’s like all hell breaks loose. Have you ever stood on the threshold of something good, something fantastic? The promise of a promotion or the promise of a pay increase or you've just fallen pregnant or your wife has and in not too many months there'll be a new life in your family or there's a great holiday coming up or a new home or peace where there was conflict. You stand there and you think 'This is going to be fantastic, I just can't wait' and then, all of a sudden it's like all hell breaks loose. Everything and everyone kind of comes after you with a pick axe at work and at home and in your heart and in your head there's turmoil. 'Hang on a minute, I'm about to step over into this promise Land, isn’t supposed to be fantastic? What is going on?' I think we've all been there right? And so has God and today we're going to look at His specific word that He wants to speak right into that situation. This week on the program we've been looking at the whole Promised Land thing, you know Abraham was promised this land that we now know as Israel, this land centuries before Israel ultimately crossed through the Jordan into that Promised Land and it started with this beautiful promise of God to Abraham that you can read in Genesis chapter 13, verse 14: The Lord said to Abraham after Lot had separated from him, "Lift up your eyes and look from a place where you are. Look north and south and east and west for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth so that if one can count the dust of the earth your offspring also can be counted. Rise up, walk through the length and the breadth of this land for I will give it to you. So Abraham moved his tent and came and settled by the oaks of Mamre which are at Hebron and there he built an altar to the Lord. Abraham was into his "70's", he was childless, he and Sarah couldn't conceive and God comes along with this stunning and incredible, almost impossible promise and then he takes Abraham on a long journey and in fact Abrahams descendants who became the nation of Israel, go on this long and winding road through, through slavery in Egypt, through death of most of the nation in the desert and finally centuries later they get to the end of that long journey. Israel is standing on one side of the Jordan River about to cross into this land that God had promised Abraham and just at that point their leader Moses, dies and God comes along with his successor, Joshua. He gives Joshua some godly advice, in fact it's more than advice, it's an admonition. Now we're going to have a read of this because it's really powerful stuff, it comes in Joshua chapter 1 beginning at verse 1, have a listen: After the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua, son of Nun, Moses' aid. "Moses my servant is dead, now then you and all these people get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land that I'm about to give them, to the Israelites. I will give you every place where you set your foot as I promised to Moses. Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon and from the great river the Euphrates, all the Hittite country to the great sea on your west. No-one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses so I will be with you. I will never leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and courageous because you will lead these people to inherit the land that I swore to their forefathers to give them. Be strong and very courageous, be careful to obey all the laws my servant Moses gave you, don't turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful where ever you go. Do not let the book of this law depart from your mouth, meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do everything that is written in it then you'll be prosperous and successful. Have I not commanded you be strong and courageous? Don't be terrified; don't be discouraged for the Lord your God will be with you where ever you go. Now that sounds really encouraging but just, let’s just put ourselves in Joshua's shoes. Moses is dead; fantastic. The tried and proven leader is gone, okay it's handed over to Joshua, Joshua's been Moses aid but gee, what a rotten timing and then God repeats His promise, "This is the land I have given you. This is the land I promised to Abraham and all your forefathers and no-one will be able to stand against you." Oops, that's not good, that's not good at all. I mean all these different tribes and nations are already in the land, they're not going to invite Israel in to take their land and say, "Oh, God said you could have it, sure, go ahead, take it all." That's not likely, there's going to be opposition when they cross over the Jordan River and go and take the Promised Land and then God says, "I'll never leave you or forsake you." Whoa, what's God saying? This is going to be really bad and three times God talks about courage, He says, "Be strong and courageous. Be strong and very courageous. Be strong and courageous and don't be terrified, don't be discouraged." Mmm, that doesn't bode well. I mean, you are Joshua, you were there 40 years ago when you saw Moses lead the nation through the Red Sea and the whole of the Egyptian army, that mighty army was drowned. You were there up on that hill up on the other side of the Red Sea and you were part of that euphoria, "Bring it on, the Promised Land, we've won, God’s taken us here, here we come!" And then 40 years in the desert. "Surely it must over now God? I mean we're days away from crossing over into the Promised Land and now, now God’s setting me up, preparing me for a tough time. He talks about battles and wars and not being terrified and this is life and death stuff, this is, this isn't what I expected of the Promised land, it's not what I expected at all." That's why I've called this week’s series, "It's Time to Take the Promised Land". The Promised Land doesn't get delivered to our front door like a pizza. God’s promise, a land flowing with milk and honey is wonderful and God’s reality is that there are battles along the way and we have to take the Promised Land. It's the same today; you know what I've noticed? The rest of the world doesn't want me to have God’s peace and God’s joy. The rest of the world doesn't want me to live in God’s promises. Every time God is about to do something amazing in my life, all hell breaks loose. The devil doesn't want me to live in the Promised Land and recently, these programs that you're listening to now, we were negotiating with a network of over 300 stations across the U.S.A. It was a period of a few months negotiating and talking and it was a huge step forward in reaching so many more people. I knew years before that we would come to this point, it was something that God had put on my heart but the stuff that happened in those months leading up, it's like the devil opened the doors of hell and threw everything he could at me and during that time, the Lord taught me and held me and stopped me from grumbling and changed me and I had to learn to trust more and believe more and withstand more and above all not give up but keep going. Joshua could have sat on his side of the Jordan River, heard what God was saying and thought, "nah, I'm out of here." He didn't, he believed in God’s promises, he crossed over and went about taking the Promised Land battle after battle. He knew it was time to take the Promised Land. /episode/index/show/32d04db5-1dff-4476-bc65-2e28e83b1760/id/34861735

Long and Winding Road // It's Time to Take the Promised Land, Part 4 02/27/2025

Long and Winding Road // It's Time to Take the Promised Land, Part 4 Dear Lord, give me patience NOW! When it comes to God and His promises, boy, it sometimes feels like He takes forever to deliver. When is God finally going to show up? I don't know about you but patience is not something that comes naturally to me. I just want things to happen and I want them to happen now. It's kind of the same when it comes to my relationship with God, "Well God, if you're going to promise me this stuff I want it now." I was devastated when I read that bit in the Bible, a thousand years is like a day to God. No! You don't understand, God you promise all sorts of stuff, I want it now! I'm praying about this person’s health or that relationship or this financial need or this feeling of fear or whatever it is. Okay, I've prayed about it, it's been five minutes, let's go God. And over the last 12 years I have discovered He doesn't work that way. Often it's a long and winding road and not everything along the way always makes sense. Have you found that or is it just me? Remember that old song, "The Long and Winding Road". Sometimes that’s how if feels when we're travelling in the Promised Land. Yesterday we looked briefly at how it was for Israel, I mean it was centuries between when God first promised this land to Abraham and when Israel, under it's new leader Joshua, finally crossed over into the Promised Land and poor Abraham, you know he believed in God’s promise but he still made plenty of mistakes along the way. You can read about it in Genesis, chapter 12 and the next few chapters but the Promised Land was written by God on Abraham’s heart and ultimately he had this son Isaac and that’s the only part of the promise he ever saw. Isaac had Jacob. Jacob had 12 sons, one of whom was Joseph and those 12 sons were the heads of the 12 tribes of Israel and Israel ultimately ended up as a large nation but in slavery in Egypt and of course God sends Moses to tell Pharaoh, "Let my people go". And he does a whole bunch of miracles and ultimately they pass through the Red Sea and they spend 40 years in the desert on this exodus, on this journey and all of a sudden one day, this mighty nation of Israel is standing on the banks of the Jordan River ready to cross over into the Promised Land. Now for Israel it was a long journey, it was a long wait, hundreds of years from when God first spoke to Abraham until when they stood on the banks of the Jordan ready to cross over. How do you think the promise that God made to Abraham was known to the Israelites in slavery in Egypt? Well, like everything else it was handed down from generation to generation. It was part of the nations psyche, one day, one day God will lead us into the Promised Land, meanwhile we'll do the brutal slavery thing. Does that sound familiar? I mean Egypt was this world power, pharaoh had unbelievable power, the power of life and death, they were the dominant world power a bit like the U.S. today I guess and Israel were slaves in this place and God sends them Moses, this 80 year old burnt out wreck that God found out the back of the desert 'cause as a young man Moses murdered an Egyptian and fled to Midian in the back of the desert and uses Moses to talk to Pharaoh and then God sends these 10 plagues, you know, locusts and the frogs and the boils and turning the Nile into blood and ultimately, in killing the first born of all the Egyptians. And so Pharaoh goes, "I've had enough, yes let the people go". And then he changes his mind and pursues them. There was this miracle at the Red Sea where Moses went down and God parted the waters of the Red Sea and the whole Israelite nation passed through the Red Sea, they got to the other side and then as pharaohs army came chasing them they went into the Red Sea and the water came back and the whole mighty Egyptian army was drowned! What a journey! Can I ask, why didn't God just give them the Promised Land? I mean there they were, the other side of the Red Sea, it's been centuries, they're just a couple of weeks journey away from the Promised Land, I mean imagine if you or I were sitting up on that hill, the other side of the Red Sea, we've just come from slavery, we've seen the mighty things that God has done through Moses and we're going, "wow, wow we made it. Promised Land here I come, bring it on, the land flowing with milk and honey. Yes!" but God didn't take them the direct route, He took them the long and winding road. Look at what Exodus chapter 13 says in verse 17: When Pharaoh let the people go God didn't lead them on the road through Philistine country even though that was shorter because God said to Himself, 'if they face war they might change their minds and go back to Egypt" so God led the people around by the desert road toward the Red Sea. The Israelites went up out of Egypt armed for battle. You see, the people weren't ready for the Promised Land, God knew that. They were just a couple of weeks walk away but they weren't ready. If you were with us the other day on the program you'll remember me talk about the fact that when God showed Abraham the Promised Land there were other people living in it, Canaanites. Well by this time, centuries later, there were Amorites and Jebusites and a whole bunch of other little Vegemites and when they got to the Promised Land, the Israelites, they would have to fight battle after battle and God knew that. They didn't realise it but God knew it. There they are sitting above the Red Sea with euphoria, if you read in Exodus chapter 15 they were singing songs and stuff, well why wouldn't they be? But God, God knew what was in their hearts. A couple of days later they were out in the desert, they were grumbling, there's no food, there's no water, God provided that. "Well okay, lets find something else to grumble about, we'll grumble about Moses and the food that God gives us is always the same". And they complained and grumbled. You know what grumbling is? Grumbling is a sure sign that we're not ready to live in the Promised Land. In Psalm 106, verse 21 it says this: They forgot the God who saved them who had done great things in Egypt, miracles in the land of Ham and awesome deeds by the Red Sea. So God said He would destroy them had not Moses, His chosen one stood in the breach before Him to keep God’s wrath from destroying them. But then they despised the pleasant land, they did not believe His promise. They grumbled in their tents, they didn't obey the Lord so He swore to them with uplifted hand that He would make them fall in the desert and all bar two of them died in the desert and never made it into the Promised Land. It was their children who ultimately made it into the Promised Land. See, grumbling is despising God’s promises, it shows we don't believe in Him or His promises and so He takes us on a long and winding road and the longer we grumble the longer the road. Forty years, all of those sitting in the freedom side of that Red Sea, all the hundreds of thousands or millions of them, all the adults bar two perished. Joshua and Caleb were the only ones, men of faith, men who believed in the promises. The thing that stops us getting into the promises of God is that we don't believe. What tells us we don't believe is our grumbling. Sometimes when I'm walking in the promises of God, I'm afraid, I'm uncertain or I feel under attack, that's okay to go to God with that, He's a realist but when we start grumbling we're despising the pleasant land. Now that's worth thinking about. /episode/index/show/32d04db5-1dff-4476-bc65-2e28e83b1760/id/34861705

God's Promise to Us // It's Time to Take the Promised Land, Part 3 02/26/2025

God's Promise to Us // It's Time to Take the Promised Land, Part 3 It can be really tough. On the one hand, you look at the promises of God and they’re amazing. But on the other, you look at the reality of our own life and think, how could they ever happen for me? Have you ever struggled, struggled to believe in the promises that people make, even the promises that God makes. In fact in particular the promises that God makes? Over the last few days we've been looking at the human impossibility of the promises that God made to Abraham the father of the nation of Israel and today we're going to take another step along Abraham's journey because he too struggled to believe God’s promises. But you know something, God has this, this amazing way of leading people like Abraham and you and me through a journey, a journey that we struggle on sometimes but a journey where, ultimately we can believe in God’s promises because if we can't believe them we can never take a hold of them. It's a God thing; it's what faith is all about. First He calls us to believe and then He takes us on a journey through His promises, through the Promised Land. I'm always so incredibly touched by the story of how God reached out to Abraham. Sure it's a story about Abraham but you know he's not some Mr Perfecto Super Christian, Abraham is human and frail and he struggled to believe the outrageous promises of God, he was torn. God gently and tenderly lead him to believe in the Promised Land. You see Abraham was 70 something, he had no children, he's living in comfort in this place called Ur and God comes to him and says, "leave all of that, go to a land that I'm going to give you and I'm going to make you a mighty nation. You're going to have more children than the stars in the sky; you're going to have more descendants than the grains of dust on the earth." If we put ourselves in Abraham’s shoes for just a minute, this old man, wouldn't we struggle too? We're going to be looking at, soon on the program, what it means to cross over into the Promised Land and the battles involved in taking the Promised Land and why God does that. I mean the Promised Land, flowing with milk and honey, wouldn't you think you'd just kind of arrive and it would be like a summer resort with a swimming pool and a bell hop to carry your bags up to your suite? Well, we're going to look at that a bit later but over the next few minutes, well it's time for you and me to consider this Promised Land and whether we believe it. Faith is the key to the promise, faith is the gift that God gives us to unlock the promise and the reason that you and I are together today no doubt, is that God wants to unlock His promises in our hearts as He breathes His spirit and His faith into us through His word. You see Israel fled Egypt because they were oppressed as slaves and they passed through the Red Sea and they began this 40 year exodus in the desert. You know how many of the Israelites that crossed through the Red Sea at the beginning of the exodus crossed through the Jordan into the Promised Land 40 years later? Out of the 100's and 1,000's and probably millions, how many? Just 2, Joshua and Caleb, those men believed in God’s promises, what happened to the rest of them? Well Psalm 106 tells us exactly what happened: They forgot the God who saved them who had done great things in Egypt, miracles in the land of Ham and the awesome deeds by the Red Sea. So God said He would destroy them had not Moses, His chosen one, stood in the breach before them to keep the wrath of God from destroying them. Then the Israelites despised the pleasant land, they did not believe God’s promise. They grumbled in their tents, they didn't obey the Lord so He swore to them with uplifted hand that He would make them fall in the desert. That's why today’s program is so important, you see you and I like Abraham, we have circumstances in our lives, we look around and it's really hard to believe that God’s promises could come true. Maybe we even have a grumble about God and His promises, that grumbling, that unbelief is going to keep us out of His Promised Land. People sometimes say, "Well Berni, you, you talk about this Promised Land, it's obvious what it meant to the Israelites back then but what does it mean to you and me, here and now?" Well as we go from the Old Testament to the New Testament there’s a transition from the physical land to the spiritual one, something that people struggled with when Jesus talked about the Kingdom of God was that they thought Jesus had come to kick the Roman occupiers out of the Promised Land but He was talking about something entirely different. There are so many passages we could go through in the New Testament but a couple that really explain the Promised Land that God has given us through Jesus, His Son. Well let’s have a look at them; the first one is in Luke chapter 17 beginning at verse 20: Once, having been asked by the pharaohs is, when the Kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, "The Kingdom of God doesn't come with your careful observation nor will people say, 'here it is' or 'there it is' because the Kingdom of God is within you. You see the Promised Land that Jesus talked about is not something that’s out there, it's not a new house or a new car or all that stuff, the Promised Land is the Kingdom of God, the rule and the reign and the Lordship of God in our hearts. Again Jesus explained it this way, He said in Matthew chapter 13, verse 44: The Kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it he hid it again and in his joy he went and sold all that he had and bought that field. Again, the Kingdom of heaven is like a merchant who went looking for fine pearls and when he found one of great value he went away and sold everything he had and he bought it. See, the Promised Land is like a treasure, it's a treasure in our hearts, it's our relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Our Dad in heaven, hallowed be your name, Your Kingdom come. In John, chapter 14, verse 23 Jesus said: If anyone loves Me they will obey my teaching and my Father will love them and we will come and make our home with them. See, plenty of people want to believe in Jesus for their eternal life. "Jesus died for my sin therefore I'm forgiven therefore I have eternal life". And then what they do with that is they take it and they file it in their filing cabinets under "insurance policy" and then live a miserable life. Jesus promised a lot of things, a rich abundant life as well as trials and persecution, He didn't promise us it would be easy to follow after Him. What He did promise is that the relationship that we have with Him would fill us to overflowing with abundant joy and peace. You see, that's where the Promised Land is today, in our hearts, in our relationship with Him in the abundant life that He promises. Let me take you back to that starry night where, where God took Abraham out, out of the tent to look up at the Milky Way and to see all the stars and He made him a promise of land and of descendants. You see God led Abraham tenderly to that point and wrote His promise on Abraham’s heart, a promise that Abraham believed against all odds, a promise that God delivered on against all the odds. You and I are each under our own patch of starry heaven today and the Lord is whispering of His promise Land in our hearts, a land purchased by Jesus on that cross, a land of blessing that goes on forever. The spirit of God will write that on our hearts if we let Him, He'll give us the faith to believe if we'll ask Him. Is today that day? /episode/index/show/32d04db5-1dff-4476-bc65-2e28e83b1760/id/34861680

One Man's Promise // It's Time to Take the Promised Land, Part 2 02/25/2025

One Man's Promise // It's Time to Take the Promised Land, Part 2 God promised Abraham lots of children and lots of land. At the time, given he was 75 years old and he and Sarah were without children, that “promise” must have seemed absolutely impossible. Yet somehow, God went about bringing that promise to life in Abraham’s heart. I guess most of us are familiar with the term, "The Promised Land". Well it comes from the fact that God promised the land that we now know as Israel to His people through a man, the father of that nation, Abraham. Now we're going to take a look at that story today on the program because its one that applies so much to who we are and where we are today in the 21st century. So many people are wandering round through life aimlessly. Oh, they may have heard God’s promises, maybe they may have even believed them; eternal life, peace, joy, a relationship with God. We can believe those things more or less but when you really take a good hard look at God’s promises and then at your own life and circumstances, well the two can be just a little bit hard to put together, how do they fit? That's a problem Abraham had too and God knew it and did something about it. And you know something God hasn't changed. So where does this term The Promised Land come from? Well it all begins when God promises some land to Abraham. This is how God first engages with His chosen people, ultimately He comes to Abraham who's the father of the chosen nation, Israel. Now Abraham is living this really comfortable existence, he was quite wealthy, he lived in a placed called Ur which is near Babylon or around the modern day Baghdad. Now God calls Abraham out of that place, if you have a Bible grab it, go to Genesis chapter 12 beginning at verse 1 and it says this: Now the Lord said to Abraham "Go from your country and your family and your father’s house to a land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. That is an incredible promise because Abraham and his wife Sarah were old, I mean they were well into their 70's and the greatest hurt of their lives was that they were childless, they had no children, they couldn't conceive and here God comes to them in their, well their latter years you'd think, with a two part blessing of land and children and not just a few children but "… I will make of you a great nation." So God’s talking about here an abundant blessing. There they are in their comfort and their wealth and they're old and God comes along, we quite don't know how, with this outrageous promise, what do they do? They up and leave, they take their possessions and their servants and their animals and they hit the road and go westward to a land called Canaan and we find out what happens when they get there, you can read about it a few verses later in Genesis, chapter 12, verses 6-8: When they'd come to the land of Canaan, Abraham passed through the land to a place at Shechem to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. Then the Lord appeared to Abraham and said, "To your offspring I will give this land." So Abraham built an altar to the Lord there who had appeared to him. Now just think about God’s promise to this old man, He says, "I will give you descendants." He's 70 something years old! He has no children, God says, "I will make a great nation of you." Really? "And I will give this land to your descendants." Do you think Abrahams looking there saying, "God, I'm in my 70's, I don't have any children, this land is occupied by the Canaanites." It all must have seemed pretty impossible but right here, right in the middle of all this impossibility, the Promised Land is born. God speaks this promise into Abraham’s life and Abraham believed it with his life, how do we know that? Because he left his comfortable existence in Ur, the place where the toilets flushed and the buses and the trains ran on time and all that sort of stuff and he followed down the dusty trail of God’s promise over hill and dale. That is a pretty outrageous decision to take and he gets to this land of God’s impossible promise, a land filled with the Canaanites who weren't about to say, "Well, God said you could have it. Sure Abraham, take our land, we don't mind." This childless, 70 something Abraham gets there, what does he do? He builds an altar to the Lord, he honours God, he bows down and says, "Well God, even though this doesn't make a whole bunch of sense, I am going to believe you." God knows what going on in Abrahams heart, He knows that this is a tough call so He takes him up a hill and makes the promise again, Genesis chapter 13 beginning at verse 14: The Lord said to Abraham after Lot had separated from him, "Raise up your eyes now and look from the place where you are. North and South and East and West, for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth so that if anyone can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted. Get up, walk through the length and the breadth of the land for I will give it to you." So Abraham moved his tent and came and settled by the oaks of Mamre which are at Hebron and there he built and altar to the Lord. I love this, I love how, how God lays out the land before him, this picture on top of the hill, God’s speaking to Abraham and breathing His promised land into this old mans heart. "Go on, walk through it as far as the eye can see. I have made this outrageous promise to you, you'll have so many descendants it's more than the grains of dust in the whole earth." And Abraham builds an altar and honours God. You see what’s going on here? God is taking him through a process, this huge leap this old man with no children, this huge leap to the Promised Land full of children, God leads Abraham gently into a place where he can believe but like you and me he's human, he's struggling with all this in his heart. You read about that in Genesis, chapter 15. Abraham goes to God and says: I still don't have a son, this other mans going to end up being my heir, how is this promise ever going to happen? Look at what God says, Genesis chapter 15, verse 4: This man shall not be your heir. No-one but your very own son shall be your heir. God took Abraham outside and said, "Look towards the heavens and count the starts if you're able to count them." Then God said to him, "So shall your descendants be." And Abraham believed the Lord and the Lord reckoned it under him as righteousness. What a beautiful picture, Abraham is aching, he wants to believe in God’s promises, the land and the descendants and this mighty nation but it's so hard isn't it? So God takes him outside to look at the stars and look at the milky way without the city lights and the smog, there are so many stars, it's a glorious sight and finally the word of God, the promise of God, God’s Promised Land drops into Abrahams heart. He still made plenty of mistakes along the way. You read about it in the next few chapters of Genesis but the Promised Land was written in Abrahams heart. And centuries went by in the history of Israel, in Egypt and all that stuff they went through in the Exodus, centuries went by but it happened, the Promised Land happened. And on that night under stars alone with God the Promised Land was written on Abrahams heart, he believed. Today will you let God write His promises on your heart? /episode/index/show/32d04db5-1dff-4476-bc65-2e28e83b1760/id/34861655

Promises, Promises, Promises // It's Time to Take the Promised Land, Part 1 02/24/2025

Promises, Promises, Promises // It's Time to Take the Promised Land, Part 1 So many things in life are full of promise and then after a while, well, they feel empty. God is full of promises too. He talks a lot about the Promised Land. The question is, how do you get a hold of His promises? How can you actually live in His Promised Land? There are many, many people in this world who feel that they're wandering aimlessly through life. Sure there have been some good things and maybe there are some more to look forward to and yeah, we all have bad things that happen in our lives, we all do but this feeling that we're wandering is somehow separate or independent of whatever is going on around us. Where am I going? Isn't there some destination other than a coffin at the end of it all? So many things in life, family and career and possessions, they hold out so much promise and for the most part they're great but where's it all headed? That's why today we're kicking off with a new series called, "It's Time to Take the Promised Land". Maybe it sounds a bit odd but indulge me, it could be one of the most important things we ever do together. I am really excited starting this new series called, "It's Time to Take the Promised Land". Now what sort of series title is that you might ask, It's Time to Take the Promised Land, well let me unpack what I've been thinking. We live in a world that promises so much, a world of brands and products and experiences and travel and luxury, you know all that stuff that they cram in on us, a world that promises so much. The marketeers, they talk about the "brand promise", for example my favourite on TV, you see the ads for margarine or breakfast cereal or low fat milk right. Ever noticed them? Here's what they look like, here's the setting. It’s a trendy, today kind of kitchen; the sun is always streaming in through the window. You ever noticed it's never raining outside, it's never cold and wet and mum, mum's pretty good looking, she's slim, she's happy and she's well adjusted. She's smiling preparing the breakfast. And all of a sudden a well adjusted teenager bounds in and the teenagers smiling and spreads the margarine on their bread or pours the milk on their cereal whatever. And then, a cool, good looking 40 something dad in a suit and a white shirt strolls in and he grabs a piece of toast and the newspaper and kisses his wife and this is the sort of family at breakfast we'd all like to have but for so many people the reality is so different to the ad. I mean when you think about breakfast, I don't know about you but for us it's always busy, my daughters a teenager, she's racing off to school and its nothing like the ad. The reality is millions of people watching that ad don't know where their next meals coming from. The reality is, families who are watching that ad are falling apart, the reality is even if they aren't they're bringing up teenagers and that's a tough gig. The reality is that most peoples family's and kitchens and lives and breakfasts look nothing like this ad and they're selling margarine or cereal or milk and the brand promise is, if you buy this product this is what your life will look like. Now you and I look at that in the cold hard day and think, "well that's absolutely nuts", right? I mean it's crazy, margarine could never do that for you. But we swallow this kind of marketing every day. New car ads are the same, have you ever noticed that the cars always are the only cars out on this open road, "buy me and you'll have the freedom to roam". Never stuck in peak hour traffic ever. You see so many things hold out a promise that they can't deliver. On the one hand we want to live out those images of success that the marketeers kind of dangle under our noses, on the other hand somehow we never do, we never quite get there, it never quite works the way it looks on the ad or on the cooking show or on the, on the home makeover show and that's the psychology of marketing. You create an image that’s desirable, people look at it they want it and they see the gap between where they are and where that image is and that gets us to spend our money because we feel inadequate. And then we get there and we discover it doesn't deliver and then they dangle the next thing under our nose and round and round and round we go on this treadmill of broken promises. I mean it makes our consumer economies go round and here you and I are on this treadmill with brands that never deliver on their brand promise and God comes along with a promise. God makes a lot of promises: I'll be your God and you'll be my people and I'll walk among you and I'll bless you and keep you and comfort you and guide you. Jesus said: I've come that you might have life in all of its abundance. It's almost like God’s painting this picture of a promised land, a land that's almost too good to be true. A land, a life, well to you and me some days it seems a bit like that kitchen and that family in the margarine ad. It's hard to swallow God’s promises when we're on that treadmill of broken promises going round and round and round. So I think in this day and age God’s promises are harder to accept than ever. Now, now we're getting close to the heart of this new series that I've called, "It's Time to Take the Promised Land". You see God is a god of promise and brand Jesus is the one brand that actually delivers. God’s plan is to lead you and me into His promised land, into a land flowing with milk and honey and we're going to look at, over the next few days, about exactly what that lands about. It's a land of blessing but, here's the but, He involves us in that process and we have a part to play and the first step that we're talking about today, is accepting God’s promise. Letting Him write that promise on our hearts and believing it with all that we are, believing it with every fibre of our beings, with our very lives. What you discover when you get to looking at what God says is that you can't have the promised land, you can't go there, you can't settle there unless first we believe it with our hearts. Tomorrow we're going to look at the time when God promised this land to Abraham. You know something, Abrahams just like you and me, he really struggled with a promise because it was impossible to promise. You see, you can't have it until first you believe then He calls us to cross over into that land, to take the land. Now that’s a shock and that’s a surprise and we're going to be looking at that too, over the coming weeks. It's really important to understand the journey and it can be tough and there can be battles along the way, it isn't home delivered like a pizza as I said before. We'll be looking through the book of Joshua in the Old Testament, all about Israel crossing over into the promised land and how battle after battle they had to take the promised land but up front, something for us to think about today and the next couple of days on the program, up front we have a decision to make. Do I really want God’s Promised Land? I mean really and if I do am I going to let Him write His promises on my heart and then carry those promises around with me through thick and thin on the bright sunny days and the cold and the wet and the windy days? Because they will come too. It's about letting Him write His promises on our hearts, His plan for us to dwell in His promised land. We've got a choice, we can go round and round and round on this treadmill of broken promises and live an empty and unfulfilled life or we can take a decision, a decision that sometime soon it's time to take the promised land. /episode/index/show/32d04db5-1dff-4476-bc65-2e28e83b1760/id/34861625

The Mustard Seed of Faith // Five Ways to Overcome Fear, Part 5 02/21/2025

The Mustard Seed of Faith // Five Ways to Overcome Fear, Part 5 Maybe you’ve been listening to me this week talking about getting rid of fear and worry out of your life – and thought, well, OK – but I just don’t have enough faith to do that. Well – if that’s the case then this message is definitely for you. We're talking this week, on the program, about banishing worry and fear from our lives. Five practical things that we can do. And my hunch, my hunch is that there'd be a few people. Maybe one or two. Sitting there, listening to it all, saying, "Well, I'm not sure if I can believe that". The guy is saying pray and let God take the worry away. That's what His word promises (Philippians chapter 4, verses 6 and 7). Replace the negative thoughts with positive thoughts (Philippians chapter 4, verses 8 and 9). Believe that you can do all things in Christ Jesus who strengthens you (Philippians chapter 4, verses 10 to 13). And get still before God. Let Him give you gladness and peace (Psalm 46). It's all really good stuff. That's what we've looked at over the last four days on the program. But there is someone saying to themselves right now, "Yeah right. That all sounds really good but I'm not sure that I can believe that it works. Maybe it works for other people who have more faith than me. But I just don't think it's going to work for me. In fact, I know it's not because I don't have enough faith." And if that little thought is running through your mind today, it's okay. Because you are not alone. Truly. Lot's of us have those thoughts from time to time. If you want to get rid of the worry and fear and stress and anxiety in your life. If you kind of believe that maybe, just maybe this stuff might work but you don't feel as though you have enough faith. Then this program today, well it's just for you. Each one of us has at least a few issues in our lives causing us stress. We do. No-one's immune. Sometimes they're external. Sometimes they're internal. And sometimes, in fact, most of the time it's both. It's not just the circumstances we're faced with but how we see them and process them and react to them and deal with them. I don't have to go through some exhaustive list. You know exactly what they are in your life. And I know what they are in my life. And we know them because they tower above us like, like big mountains. So big and so dark and so impossible and so immovable. The person who hurts us who's just never ever, ever going to change. The sense of inadequacy and inferiority that we have inside that it's just never ever, ever going to go away. The anger we feel, the resentment. The financial hardship. There I go, I'm making a list. Couldn't help myself. These are dirty great immovable mountains. They just won't move and budge out of our lives. They're too tall and steep and frightening to climb. They're too wide to go around. And as for shifting them out of the road. Well that's completely and utterly impossible. Got the picture, right? And as we each survey the landscape of our lives. The relationships, the circumstances, the situations. Pretty quickly we can spot those mountains. Two, three, four, perhaps a half a dozen. Maybe even a mountain range where they're all kind of linked and we can't really tell where one of them stops and another one begins. And it's those mountains that we worry about. The thought of what they mean that strikes fear in our hearts. They rob us of sleep as our minds look at them. Just the sight of them. Just the thought of them. You can feel the knife of fear stabbing in your heart. And even when we turn our backs on them. Or shut our eyes. Or pretend that they aren't there. The worry eats away inside us like a, like a worm eats away inside an apple. And that joker on the radio has the hide to get up and say that we can be free from fear and worry in our lives if we do this or do that. I just don't have enough faith to believe that. That's good. Because nor do I. Truly. Invariably we start off with just a tinsy winsy little bit of faith. It's all we have. There was a time when Jesus saw a fig tree and He was hungry. So He walked up to it and there wasn't a single fig on it. And the reason was, it wasn't fig season. So He curses the fig tree. Now, it's not exactly what we might expect the Son of God to do. But He does. And the next day, He and His disciples are walking past that very same fig tree and it's all withered and dead. And Peter says, "wow, look at that! That fig tree you cursed, it's dead." At this point, Jesus stops in His tracks. Turns around to them. And as if to tell them the blindingly, glimpsingly obvious. As if to say, "You still don't get it do you?" This is what He says, Mark chapter 11, verses 22 to 24. He says: Have faith in God. Truly I tell you. If you say to this mountain, 'Be taken up and thrown into the sea', if you do not doubt in your heart but believe what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you. So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer believe that you have received it and it will be yours. Now you and I, we find that pretty hard to believe. We've heard this extreme faith preaching. Name it and claim it. Blab it and grab it. So what we do is we say, "Mmm, I know it's in the Bible but actually, I can't cope with that. It doesn't work. So mentally I'm going to strike it out. At the very least I just don't have enough faith. I can't believe it in my heart. So it's no good for me." Well evidently, His disciples had the same problem. Because in another particularly impossible situation, He explains it to them in a slightly different way. In a way that would have made a whole bunch more sense to them. See, they asked Him why it was, that this boy they tried to heal but they couldn't and Jesus turned around and healed him. And they thought, "well, how come we couldn't heal him?" And this is what Jesus told them in Matthew chapter 17, verse 20. He said to them: Because of your little faith. For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain 'move from here to there' and it will move and nothing will be impossible for you. Now my Holman Bible Dictionary says this about the mustard tree and it's seeds. Let me quote it directly. "Mustard – a large annual plant which grows quite quickly. Its seeds were once thought to be the smallest seed in the world." See, I have this tiny little mustard seed in my hand. Insy winsy little thing. We have them in our spice cupboard in the kitchen at home. The thing you see is not so much the seed but the empty hand. What you see is how much faith you don't have rather than the faith that you do. But there are two things about this mustard seed that the people that Jesus was talking to would have understood. Firstly, how small it is. And secondly how quickly it grows when you put it in the ground. Jesus is saying something powerful here and we all need to get a handle on it. He's saying you only need the smallest amount of faith to get started. When we put that in the ground, when we put it to work, not only is it enough to move those mighty, immovable, impossible mountains. But as sure as God made little green apples, it's going to grow quickly. And you know, that's exactly been my experience. We can sit there and bemoan the fact that we only have a small amount of faith. Or, we can take Jesus at His word. That this little mustard seed is more than enough and start praying with just that amount of faith. Plant it. Put it in the ground. Put it to work. Come on, just don't sit there: I can do all things in Christ Jesus. Put the faith to work because faith without works is dead. Do It! And when we do that. We get up in the morning. We take those Scripture verses. We read them. We say them. We memorise them. We stop still for a moment during the day. We remember them again. We rest in them. Before we go to sleep we do the same thing. Let me tell you, two things are going to happen. Firstly, one by one, our mountains will be lifted up and will fall into the sea. And secondly, our faith is going to grow so quickly. Just as sure as God made little green apples. /episode/index/show/32d04db5-1dff-4476-bc65-2e28e83b1760/id/34730040

A Different Perspective Official Podcast

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