Do you know how to run?  I don’t mean you are a marathoner or anything like that.  I just mean, if you were being chased by a bear or a zombie or a clown, would you be able to run?

Do you remember learning how to run?  Did you take running lessons to be able to put one foot in front of the other in rapid succession?  I’ll bet you don’t remember the first time you ran.  It’s one of those abilities that most people just know how to do.  Obviously we have to learn how to run.  And before that we have to learn how to walk, and before that crawl, and before that roll over.  But even before kindergarten, most of us have running down pat.

Now, how about prayer?  Do you know how to pray?  Has it become one of those things that you just know how to do.  Some people I know have told me they don’t know how to pray, and I think “How can anybody not know how to pray?”  I think praying is definitely easier than running–and definitely more rewarding.

How about you.  Can you pray?  Would you like to?

PS. Sorry about the sound quality of this one.  It’s pretty bad.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 48:42 — 22.3MB)

CHAPTER 4 – Abraham’s Faith

What if you hit somebody with your car?  You didn’t mean to, but you were fiddling with the radio dial at just the wrong moment when a kid ran out into the road, and you killed the child.

Would there ever be anything you could do to make up for that?  Even if you were able to give billions of dollars to children’s hospitals and invent new technologies that would prevent future automobile related deaths and build and run an orphanage and form a support network for parents who had lost their kids–would any of that (or anything else you could do) restore the life of that kid you hit?  Of course not.

It’s the same with sin.  Sin (all sin) causes spiritual death, which means you can’t do anything to save or restore your own soul.  That’s why you must be saved by God’s grace through your faith in him.  And, obviously it’s more than an acknowledgment that he is real.  It’s the same kind of faith that Abraham had, that caused him to do whatever God told him to do.

Call it faith or belief or repentance, the idea is you change your mind about your old life.  You choose to turn around and walk away from sin and walk in God’s ways.  That’s what real faith is about.  It’s not a feeling or a ceremony or a title.  It’s a decision to trust and obey everything God tells you–just like Abraham.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 49:45 — 22.8MB)

Do you ever wonder why some prayers don’t seem to get answered?  Did you ever think that maybe he is answering–it’s just not the answer you were hoping for?  How do you sort through questions like that?

One good thing to do might be to reflect on where the interference to your communication with God might be occurring.  Is it a problem with God not being able or willing to hear you?  Maybe there’s a good reason for that.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 48:46 — 22.3MB)

CHAPTER THREE – Really Bad Breath

Let’s say you are at home, in your front yard, and you look across the street and notice black smoke and flames coming from the roof of your neighbors house.  Then you notice that your neighbor is just getting home from work and hasn’t noticed that his house is on fire and he’s on the porch fumbling for his keys.

What do you do?  Do you let him go into a burning house without saying a word.  Or do you yell at the top of your lungs, “DON’T GO IN THERE!  YOUR HOUSE IS ON FIRE!”

Now picture all the people who are dooming themselves to eternal fire through their own sin.  What do you do?  Do you do whatever it takes to get their attention and convince them to stop?  Or do you let them walk into that burning house?

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 54:21 — 24.9MB)

What do you pray about?  Do you pray at all?  Would you say you have a good prayer life?  Do you enjoy it?  If you don’t, why not?

How about your human relationships–is it easy for you to talk with friends and family?

Prayer is pretty similar.  At it’s most basic level, prayer is communicating with God.  If you know and love God, prayer comes extremely easy, and it’s enjoyable.  If you don’t know God, it’s going to be a lot more awkward trying to have a meaningful conversation with him.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 50:02 — 22.9MB)

CHAPTER TWO – I Surgery

I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “You reap what you sow.”  Did you know it’s really true?  It’s not just a saying.  If you live a good life and help others and always do what’s right and obey God in everything you do, then you will reap the good fruit of integrity and character and peace and joy.  But if you sow dishonesty and gossip and sinfulness, you will reap judgment and punishment and death.  Do you believe it?  Do you believe it enough to change the way you live?

Either way you’ll end up believing it.  On that day when you stand before the Great Judge of the universe, you’ll believe you reap what you sow because you’ll experience it in a deeper reality than you’ve ever experienced before.

My suggestion: get right with Jesus today.  Change your life and ask God to forgive you so that you can start living for him now and reap a good fruit rather than a bad harvest.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 45:01 — 20.6MB)

CHAPTER ONE – It’s Greek to Me

Have you ever noticed that most people who say they disagree with the Bible have never read the Bible?  Isn’t that funny?  Actually, it’s not funny…it’s sad.  You would think that people would want to read such an important book–whether or not they agree with it.  That way you could at least disagree from a position of knowledge rather than complete ignorance.

But what’s even more sad than that are all the people who claim to believe in the Bible who have never read it all the way through.  How could anybody be so irresponsible as to base their life on a book that they’ve never read.  That’s probably why there are so many little factions who each call themselves the “real” church.

If all those people (believers and unbelievers) would read the book, there would probably be a lot less arguments about religion.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 50:13 — 23.0MB)

Why do people fall in love?  What’s their motivation?  I mean, why does anybody go through all the trouble of pursuing and building a love relationship.  I’m not talking about lust and sex.  I’m talking about people who fall head over heels and are willing to put on their best and spend their money and make extra time for dating and gifts and trips –and all the emotional stress and upheaval that comes with the risk of putting your heart on the line hoping for somebody else to respond with the same feelings.  Why do people do that?

The answer is pretty obvious–even if it doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense when you think about how much time and attention a good relationship takes.  People give their love because it’s rewarding to share real love with another person.  When husbands and wives love each other or parents love their children et cetera, it often requires a lot of sacrifice, but anybody with a good relationship will tell you that it’s more than worth it.

Living for God is the same thing.  Serving God often requires sacrifice and takes work and dedication and commitment.  But anybody who has a good relationship with Jesus Christ will tell you that it’s more than worth it.  The joy and contentment and deep love that fills your life as a result of belonging to God makes living life God’s way a desire rather than just a regulation.

Do you know what I mean?  If so, congrats!  If not, would you like to?

(This podcast is a retelling of the same idea from the December 27th podcast.)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 52:05 — 23.8MB)

Do you know Jesus?  How do you know that you know?  Did somebody else tell you?  Are you just guessing?  Do you have any proof?  If you claim to know Jesus, are you sure he’d claim to know you?

Do you know why Jesus tells people to “Depart from me.  I never knew you.”?  Don’t you think that might be something important to know about?

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 47:45 — 21.9MB)

Too many times I’ve been asked the question, “Do you have to go to church to be a Christian?”

The technical answer is, of course, no.  Going to church does not make one a Christian.  There are plenty of non-Christians who go to church all the time.  They might even think they’re Christian because they go to church.  But going to church doesn’t make you a Christian anymore than going to Washington makes you the President.  And going home again doesn’t remove any of your Christianity.  Proximity to a church building, is not how one determines whether or not they belong to Jesus Christ.

However, the question itself reveals a flawed view of Christianity.  A Christian IS the church.  All true believers are part of the body of Christ.  You can’t help it.  And the body has to work together.  You simply can’t work as part of an integrated body of believers if you disconnect yourself from it.  So real Christians seek out the opportunity to worship in unison with other believers, to serve and encourage each other in community, to carry out their mission to preach the Good News of the Gospel to the world as a team.

So you can become a Christian without ever having darkened the doors of a church building.  But you can’t live as part of the body of Christ while keeping yourself removed from the fellowship of the church.

In other words, don’t just go to church…BE the church.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 47:20 — 21.7MB)