Episodes

October 19th, 2024, is our celebration month! Today, we look at the first of three prayer requests, very specific requests from the Author of Scripture. Today, He says, "Pray for the harvest. We hear from Jesus: Matthew 9:35-38, and "Jesus *said to them, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to accomplish His work. 35 "Do you not say, 'There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest'? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes, and look on the fields, that they are white for harv...

Straightforward message today: Love "And so, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; 13 bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. 14 And beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity." Colossians 3:12-14 Our Savior displayed "compassion, kindness humility, gentleness, patience, putt...

This episode is a repeat of our episode on forgiveness. This episode was well received, and as you will hear, praying that 2023 will be a year of Jubilee and Forgiveness and revisiting just how serious God is about His children forgiving as we have been forgiven seems like a good idea. Thank You, Jesus! The host is weak, faltering, and wholly inadequate for the task, but the word of God is none of those. The call for the children of God to forgive is serious, and the Bible uses: Serious Command ...

Straightforward message today: The Author of Scripture commands us to forgive. The most difficult skill we have to learn, and by skill I mean changing our self-centered attitude about others who have wronged us, but it is an essential command. "Pray, then, in this way: 'Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. 10 'Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. 11 'Give us this day our daily bread. 12' And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors." M...

Day 16 of our October surprise, and we are looking into one of the principles in Scripture, emphasized by Peter. In 1 Peter 2:1, he tells us to, like newborn babes, and grow through the food of Scripture, and then in 2 Peter 1 we read: "Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge; 6 and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness; 7 and in you...

These episodes are a little hard for me. It is hard for me to not input into them at all, and we basically read the Psalm to learn from David, the sweet Psalmist of Israel (2 Samuel 23:1) the art of prayer and worship. While knowing you can read the Psalm for yourself, it is good to worship together culminating with verse 14: "Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart Be acceptable in Thy sight, O LORD, my rock and my Redeemer." Oh, may it be so, our King, the great "I AM!" Worshi...

We asked, What else might daily reliance on God for Bread Teach Us? Contentment is the answer. The Author tells us what that looks like. "Two things I asked of Thee, Do not refuse me before I die: 8 Keep deception and lies far from me, Give me neither poverty nor riches; Feed me with the food that is my portion, 9 Lest I be full and deny Thee and say, "Who is the LORD?" Or lest I be in want and steal, And profane the name of my God." Proverbs 30:7-9 Glory to God, give us today, "what is our port...

We began our October Surprise with an antidotal story of a prayer meeting I recently attended, and the content was 100 percent centered on health. Lest we think God does not care for the mundane, we come back to Matthew 6:9-12 "Pray, then, in this way: 'Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. 10 'Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. 11 'Give us this day our daily bread." We have, as humans, no more consistent need than food and perhaps no more consistent f...

Today, the Author of Scripture, through "the man after God's own heart," displays wondrous worship. "O Lord, our Lord, How majestic is Thy name in all the earth, Who hast displayed Thy splendor above the heavens! 2 From the mouth of infants and nursing babes Thou hast established strength, Because of Thine adversaries, To make the enemy and the revengeful cease. 3 When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, The moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained; 4 What is man, that Thou dost...

My realization and confession for today, as I read the first instance that we know of, of Paul sending a missive with his prayer for a Church (1 & 2 Thessalonians seem to be his earliest letters), I was struck with how little time I take in gratitude for God's work in salvation for those I love. That is going to change. Our Passage 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10 in summary. What a list! Thanks and praise for the work of faith and hope in the presence of God. Knowing God's will, Imitators of Paul and his...

The Longer we are saved and take our faith seriously, the more our perception of God and His word changes it has to we are growing, 1 Peter 2:1 So, as we look at our passages this October, we are trying to stay out of the way and ask the following question: What does the Author of Scripture say, and how might His letter to us impact the content of our prayers? At the start of our October celebration, I asked the worldwide audience to sincerely pray for my Christian culture here in the U.S. that ...

Does the Author of Scripture have any content for us as we pray for brothers and sisters we love, have lost contact with, and may never see again, and may never have met? :And when He saw the multitudes, He went up on the mountain; and after He sat down, His disciples came to Him. 2 And opening His mouth He began to teach them, saying, 3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. 5 "Blessed are the gentle, fo...

As children of God, we are guided by the author of Scripture, and our Father leads us to a personal prayer. This same prayer, when extended to others, becomes a powerful tool of unity and connection in our spiritual community. This year, as in the previous two… Acts 20:24 "But I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself, in order that I may finish my course, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God."… Has made it ...

Is it appropriate for one person, maybe you, to confess the corporate sins of your Christian culture? The Author of Scripture, moving on Daniel and Nehemiah, is worth listening to. "So I gave my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes. 4And I prayed to the LORD my God and confessed and said, "Alas, O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and lovingkindness for those who love Him and keep His commandments, 5 we have s...

The truth is, I am not all that smart, but one thing I do know beyond all doubt is "And this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." John 17:3 Nothing is better in the whole world, and our converse with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit also carries us through the deepest valleys. Thank You, Jesus! Our meditation for today: How might we apply these passages to our prayer lives? Move on is Holy Spirit. Now faith is the assurance of things...

Day 5 of our October Surprise 2024 One of my most tremendous encouragements to increasing my faith is: "For when God made the promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, 14 saying, 'I WILL SURELY BLESS YOU, AND I WILL SURELY MULTIPLY YOU.' 15 And thus, having patiently waited, he obtained the promise. 16 For men swear by one greater than themselves, and with them an oath given as confirmation is an end of every dispute. 17 In the same way God, desiring even m...

My best days are many times sleepless nights. God has often made the most resounding impact on His hard-headed slave -me- through sleepless nights wrestling with Him. This delayed episode is just one occasion of God's work on a dull hearer. We will see how dangerous it is to believe we pray primarily to get what we want. We follow Balak and Balaam as they persist in prayer, which is clearly against God's will. Ploy 1: Everyone thinks it's a good idea. Ploy 2: Really distinguished men think it is...

Day 4 of our October Surprise! We saw yesterday Faith, Hope, and Love will Abide. They abide now and for eternity. How, though, do we know God, the God of the Bible, can bring about His glorious promises to us? Two witnesses today: 1. Power Unfathomable: The greatest injustice ever in the universe was the murder on the cross of Jesus the Messiah. The most glorious sacrifice ever given was Jesus' death on the cross for our eternal good. 2. Power Unimaginable: "In the beginning, God created the he...

Prayer is my personal testimony. Prayer brings us into a true fellowship and community, which, we like to say in my culture, brings us to a close bond with our holy God. He is Creator of the universe, which makes it awesome. He is our savior, which makes us humble and rejoicing; he's the sustainer of our lives, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This podcast tells of all the mercies and joys God has given me, undeserving as I am. But all those things were opened up by talking to him honestly and open...

Day 2 of our 2024 October Surprise: today, we trust the Holy Spirit to apply His word to our hearts, with minimum input from your host/principal. Our So What:? How might the following passages, given us by men moved by the Holy Spirit, inform our prayer concerns? "Many other signs, therefore, Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing yo...

"The Lord will deliver me from every evil deed, and will bring me safely to His heavenly kingdom; to Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen." 2 Timothy 4:18 This one verse helps us learn to pray as we walk through how using The Foundational Blocks of Biblical Prayer can lead us to find God, our circumstances, and how we might intercede to God for ourselves and others through a mega-comforting concept from the promises of God. As we mature in our Christian lives, our sins, even ones we thought w...

Day 1 of our October surprise, this year, we focus on what the author of the Bible says to help sharpen our prayers. Our personal prayers and those we intercede for should be informed by the God-head, Biblically, the Holy Spirit. The witness of Scripture is that God should be the very heart of our lives, and we are designed and renewed to listen to the Holy Spirit for guidance in our prayers. The author of the Bible: "But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's...

We kick off our introduction to our “October Surprise - 2024” by welcoming Romanian listeners and one other country to be named later. Thank you to all of you in Romania and all our new listeners. If we are to consider as serious, "Jesus answered, “The foremost is, ‘HEAR, O ISRAEL! THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE LORD; 30 AND YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.’” We agree with Jeremiah Burroughs he concludes hi...