The Other 167

The Christmas season brings a lot of traditions along with it. Santa, movies, songs, gifts, trees, decorations, concerts and funny sweaters. But the whole season, the whole story, it's all about God and His love for us.

It's easy to get swept up in the chaos this time of year and forget why we are doing all these things in the first place. But what Christmas celebrates is so much more im...

The perception of Christianity, even sometimes from within Christianity, is that Christians are supposed to be perfect, righteous people. We equate God's ability to love and use us to our ability to perform at or close to His expectations.

Maybe that part isn't entirely untrue. The lie might be in what we think His expectations actually are.

God knows everything, so He most certainly kno...

Living out the Christian life is really what the first 99 episodes have been about, so it was a fitting title for the 100th. 

Reading scripture, prayer, church, these are all great things that we need in our lives to grow closer to the Lord. But what we learn and how we grow should spill over into how we live our lives as well. If it doesn't, how much did we really grow? 

We should also ...

It's easy to think Jesus didn't need faith. If He was God, He knew everything and didn't have to worry right? But without faith it is impossible to please God, and God Himself said He was well pleased with Jesus. So He must have had to rely on some faith in His time here. 

When Jesus was on earth, He voluntarily surrendered some of His God-like attributes, coming down to our level in som...

Worshiping Jesus isn't an hour a week church service, a 15-minute daily devotion, or a nightly prayer. It is a way of life. For a Christian, it is the way of life. 

It is welcoming Jesus along for the minute by minute ride. The ride with the crazy drivers, difficult people, and less than ideal circumstances. He wants to be a part of it all. Church and quiet time are the easy times to fol...

Why are we doing what we are doing? Better yet, Who is directing us?

It's so easy to take control and do what we want or do what we know we should for the wrong reasons. But if we are being led by God, our hearts align with our motives, to serve Him in gratitude, and direct others to Jesus!

Chapters

• (00:00:02) - It Takes Courage to Love Self
• (00:01:05) - My Son's First Step T...

If we aren't careful, our inner legalist can twist our motivation to obey God. We either do it so appear righteous to others, make ourselves feel better about ourselves, or even to earn God's favor so He will give us what we desire. 

Not only are those the wrong reasons to obey God, they are sinful! Self-righteousness, pride, & greed square off directly in the face of what God desire...

God can do anything He wants. Literally anything. We can't even comprehend His power, let alone match it.

But when it comes to the things most important to us, for some reason we try to limit His power. Yes, He can create the universe, raise the dead, multiply fish and bread, but what is that to us?!

We think this one thing in our life is the one thing God can't handle. We trust ourselve...

We are naturally bent towards comparing ourselves to others. How skilled are we at certain tasks? How kind are we towards others? How much have we been blessed?

Looking only at ourselves doesn't tell us much. We need to know the answers to these questions for other people to know how we measure up.

Very little can come out of this. We either find ways to be jealous of others or find ways...

Sometimes we give our best effort, and things don't work out. Other times they don't work out because we don't give them our best effort.

I've honestly never known which was harder to deal with. On one hand, you have to deal with regret when you know you could have tried harder. But on the other, when your best wasn't good enough, it's a downright humiliating thing to have to accept.

Bot...

There's a scene from an old baseball movie called Moneyball. In the scene, a player hits a ball deep into the outfield and immediately runs as fast as he can towards first base with no regard for the ball.

As he rounds first, he trips over the bag into an embarrassing 15-foot barrel roll. Crawling frantically back towards first base, he looks up to opposing players and his own coaches' p...

What did Paul mean when he said "to live is Christ"? Charlie Kirk knew.

Very few people exemplify Christlikeness as well as Charlie did. He spoke the truth with more grace and love than most can manage these days.

He stood firm teaching the word of God courageously, never alarmed by the many opponents to his purpose. He worked fearlessly, and patiently, to try to unify a crooked and perv...

There's a subtle, but huge difference, between knowing about God, and having a personal relationship with Him.

You can know that God is all powerful and all knowing, without experiencing the peace that comes from trusting Him. 

You can know that God forgives sin, without experiencing the grace of His forgiveness for the worst thing you've ever done. 

You can know that God wants you to ha...

As I grow closer to the Lord, the more I am marveled by His creation around us. I love to point out nice sunsets to the kids, or find a good place to go for a walk away from the man made stuff. 

But it can be easy to forget that of all of God's creation, we are His most precious. He created the world around us to show us His power, but He created us to show us His love. 

How can we be a ...

Serving God isn't an obligation. It's a priviledge, one given by Him and Him alone. God doesn't take church attendance. He doesn't count Hail Mary's. We aren't credited with righteousness based on mission trips or Sunday school. We are credited by grace alone, through faith alone. 

We are natually born scorekeepers. We appreciate that Jesus wiped out the bad that we've done. But we still...

Have you ever gone out to eat and filled up so much on the bread that you didn't have room for the entree? How frustrating is that!? Load up so much on the free bread that you only have room for 3 bites of the main course. Worst of all, the bread only lasts about 2 hours. Then you're hungry again and settling for a $40 microwaved steak. 

The same thing can happen in our spiritual lives. ...

I'm the world's worst for keeping my car on empty. My theory is that I get better gas milage by keeping my fuel load light. $10 bucks at a time, every day or so, that's my game plan. 

But apparently the shelf life on a 4-runner's fuel sensor is about 213,000 miles. So I recently started playing the old odometer game. Fill up, reset the odometer, and keep the odometer below 400. Now I'm n...

Awesome to have Brandon Goss join us this week. This was a lot of fun and we hope he'll come back whenever he can. (And the Monster diet does seem to work, by the way.)

How much fear, worry, and doubt to we carry around with us? These aren't fun, and they aren't what God intends or wants for our life. He wants us to trust in Him completely. 

When we follow Him with our whole heart, there...

God desires truth in our inner most parts. That sure is inconvenient isn't it? None of us want to admit our struggles, maybe even to ourselves. 

Kenny said people might be shocked to know who I really am, and you might be. So, brace yourself...

I cuss a lot. Not as much as I used to, and I'm working on it. But I say a lot of things I'm glad y'all don't hear. I also like Miller Lite more ...