The Burt (Not Ernie) Show - Believing God’s Promises & Understanding Your Identity in Christ

Promises Made, Promises Kept - Celebrating 150 Episodes with a Giveaway!

Well hello to you, thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Burt (Not Ernie) Show. I am so excited to be sharing some pretty awesome promises straight from God’s Word on the show today, and this is a milestone episode…with some giveaways to celebrate and announcing the official launch of my new podcast, which is titled The Prayer Podcast with Jan L. Burt. I hope you’ll click the link in the show notes to enter the giveaway (there are multiple winners who will win prizes, and I do love a good giveaway) and hopefully you’ll check out the new podcast (shorter form of content on that show, episodes are between 10 and 15 minutes long and of course, prayer happens in every single episode…so when you listen, you’ll also be covered in prayer.) And if you happen to leave a rating or review for the show, that gets you bonus entries in the giveaways. So, big show today. Big promises we’ll look at today. And ya know, with the Lord God Almighty, a promise made is as good as a promise kept. Let’s get started.

Enter the giveaway here!

Find The Prayer Podcast wth Jan L. Burt here! (bonus entries to the giveaway if you rate / review the new podcast! TIA!) 

You’re listening to The Burt (Not Ernie) Show, part of the Spark Network, now playing via the Edifi app. This is episode number 150.

So today on the show, we are taking a look at more than just one or two verses. Nope, today for this milestone episode we’re taking it a bit further and looking at a couple of chapters from the New Testament book of Matthew. And the reason we are going to do a sort of fly-over look at these chapters is because there is a whole lot here about God making promises and then boom keeping them, fulfilling them to the letter. These portions of Scripture show us that God will never fail to do every single thing He has promised to do, and when He starts to move, boy does He ever get things moving. No matter how wild these promises and prophecies may have seemed, especially were you to be considering them all and wondering, “How is this gonna work out? How is this possible? And that possible? How? Huh?”, these chapters show us that our God is not only the God who does impossible things, but the God who promises impossible things and then makes good. 

 

In Matthew chapter 1, we first see the genealogy of Jesus listed from Abraham down to Joseph the husband of Mary, who was the mother of Jesus. And as an aside, in this listing of ancestors of Jesus, we find some women mentioned specifically…so if you happen to be a woman who maybe feels as if you aren’t exactly sure if God has a meaningful purpose or place for you, these women being noted so specifically, like in parenthesis as to whose mother they were, that’s a way that the Word of God, the living and active Word of God as is says in the book of Hebrews, God’s Word tells you that you matter. And you matter because God says you do. We have Tamar, the mother of Perez and Zerah whose father was Judah. We have Baoz, whose mother was Rahab, and Boaz of course married Ruth who was the mother of Obed, who was the father of Jesse who was the father of King David. And the fourth woman mentioned in Matthew 1 was Bathsheba, and she is described as the widow or Uriah. Those few words remind me that God sees our deepest points of anguish, grief and pain, and He acknowledges them. He is our Comforter, and He is so good at giving us the comfort we need as we need it. He sees us, and every now and then, as a women, a female Christian, this is a very timely reminder. 

 

Verse 17 in the NLT says: All those listed above include fourteen generations from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the Babylonian exile, and fourteen from the Babylonian exile to the Messiah.

 

Just from this verse, we can see how true it is that God is a God of order and not of chaos. The world, at large or our own small corner of it, can seem pretty chaotic. We can always turn to the One who is not chaotic and will always be a God of order. 

 

Starting with verse 18 in Matthew chapter 1, the focus turns to the birth and early years of the life of our Messiah, Jesus. 

 

Verse 19 says that Joseph planned to break his engagement with Mary quietly, so as not to disgrace her publicly, after he learned of her pregnancy. And then, says verse 20, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and told him who the Child actually was, told him to give the baby the name Jesus, and that He would save His people from their sins. 

 

Verses 22-24 say this: All of this occurred to fulfill the Lord’s message through His prophet: “Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call Him Immanuel, which means ‘God is with us.’ “ When Joseph woke up, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded and took Mary as his wife.

 

So the promise, the prophecy, was originally made as we read it in Isa 7:14; 8:8, 10. And boom, looky here…God kept that promise. Pretty big promise to both make and keep, wouldn’t you say? Virgin birth? That’s a big one. Pretty impossible. Sounds like God’s specialty! 

 

Chapter 2, verse 1 says that Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea. Let’s read verses 5-6, from the NLT: “In Bethlehem in Judea…for this is what the prophet wrote: ‘And you, O Bethlehem in the land of Juday, are not least among the ruling cities of Juday, for a ruler will come from you who will be the shepherd for My people Israel.’ “ Mic 5:2; 2 Sam 5:2

 

Second promise, prophecy, we find fulfilled here. Look how perfectly the Lord keeps His promises. They did not live in Bethlehem, but were there to be counted and registered and to pay taxes. Had to travel to the town that had to do with family lineage, and so there they found themselves as it says in Luke chapter 2, while they were there the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son, the Lord Jesus. 

 

Now, after the wise men had altered evil King Herod to the newborn King of the Jews, he had a major freak out and sent his marauders (look, I am gonna call them that rather than soldiers cuz butchering babies is not something my hubs would have done as a soldier, so marauders it is) to kill all the baby boys two and under. Verse 13 says an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and told him to get up, to flee with the child and his mother, to Egypt and to stay there until they were told to return. Joseph did what he always did, which was to obey right away. Verse 14 says that that night Joseph took them and left for Egypt. Let me tell ya, obedience matters. And the quicker you obey the Lord, the better. Just have your mind made up, be prayed up in this area, ask Him to give you feet that are quick to obey, to move at His leading and command, and to not delay or dawdle. You’ll be blessed by praying that prayer and living obediently, and guess what? Others will be blessed by your obedience too. Win win when we are fast in our obedience. 

 

Verses 17-18, NLT: Herod’s brutal action fulfilled what God had spoken through the prophet Jeremiah: “A cry was heard in Ramah - weeping and great mourning. Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted, for they are dead.” 

 

This happened just as Jeremiah prophesied it would. The Lord did not want those baby boys killed, so let’s make note of that important truth. This was foretold to Jeremiah so that when this awful thing occurred, and it was so awful, a cry heard in Ramah, weeping for her children who were dead, so awful, stand out kind of terrible moment in Israel’s history…and to be noted as one more proof of the Messiah, Jesus. Also, never doubt how far the devil will go in his outward acts of hatred toward the Lord. Here he acted through a man, King Herod, who evidently did not have much trouble responding to the prompts of satan to do his dirty work. Evil is real, satan hates Jesus, and there are people who do the devil’s bidding. Jeremiah’s prophetic words were proved true.

 

Now that’s just three astounding and pretty impossible prophecies, promises, that were kept to the tiniest detail just as the Lord predicted through His prophets, and then via the written record of His words as given to those prophets. We are starting to move into the realm of statistical improbability. We should be a bit amazed at this.

 

The last several verses from Matthew chapter 2 remind us that when Herod died, an angel appeared yet again to Joseph in a dream and told him to take the child and his mother back to Israel because those who were trying to kill the child are dead. Joseph didn’t hear this news via the grapevine, the paper landing on his doorstep one toasty warm Egyptian morning. He didn’t have to wait around and get the deets from some relative sending a message via camel or something. Nope. God sent an angel in a dream to tell him, time to go back home. And of course, per his character, verse 21 says that Joseph got up and returned to the land of Israel with Jesus and his mother. Like, had the dream, got up and got busy doing what he’d been told to do. Man, he was not a dawdler or a delayer or a dream denier. He was a man of obedient action, and I have learned a lot about quick obedience and how the Lord speaks to His people who will listen and heed, from the life of Joseph. I want to obey like this! Like, challenge accepted…Lord, help me to obey like Joseph obeyed.

 

Verses 22-23 finish off this chapter: But when he learned that the new ruler of Judea was Herod’s son Archelaus he was afraid to go back there. Then, after being warned in a dream, he left for the region of Galilee. (Those who say it’s not a New Testament, new covenant thing for God to speak to His people through dreams, well, that’s one of those times when I want to use that sound byte, ya know the one, “Find it in the Bible…find it in the Bible…” Cuz what I see in my New Testament is God speaking through dreams, through angels in dreams and in visions, so there’s that…do with it what you will, my friend.”)

 

He left for the regions of Galilee. So the family went and lived in a town called Nazareth. This fulfilled what the prophets had said: “He will be called a Nazarene.” 

 

That’s a lot of kept promises, isn’t it? Don’t you just love this? Isn’t this an encouraging reminder that He is gonna do exactly what He said that He will do, no ifs ands or buts about it. He gonna do it! He will. He really, really will. So reassuring and a huge boon to our faith. Like a super booster for faith enhancement. Do you believe better when you hear about fulfilled promises? I hope so! You sure should. This is who Your God is, His character is untarnishable. He said, and He means to do it.

 

So prophecies from Isaiah, from Micah, from 2 Samuel, from Hosea, and from Jeremiah all specifically mentioned here and noted as being fulfilled. So this baby, Messiah, gonna be from Bethlehem somehow and also from Galilee, a Nazarene and also somehow gonna be called out of Egypt? Yes, that’s exactly right. 

 

Now what promise has God given you that seems impossible, like this does not and cannot add up, humanly speaking? 

Is He a different God than the God of the Bible?

Are you willing to lean in and trust all the more for what He has promised He will do?

 

Because with Him, a promise made is a promise kept. 

 

That is what I want you to see from this portion of Scripture for this episode of the podcast. Don’t miss the application for your life, for those you’re praying for, for your local church, for you and the world that is your world, where you live day to day. Don’t miss this. God’s got something for you, and you can trust Him to bring it about in His way and on His timetable. So good to know that. Matthew 1 and 2 teach us a whole lot, don’t they?

 

Now, I have a verse to share with you that is a promise God has made and that God is going to keep. This is for you, so I’m gonna read it and then pray it over you today.

 

2 Corinthians 9:8 NLT - And God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others.

 

Alright, let me read that once more. Gotta get loud sometimes, read it again sometimes, and get the devil off your back, outta your hair, out of your ear whispering his lies…so sometimes, we just need to read it again. Out loud. With some oomph. 

 

And God WILL generously provide ALL (not some, but ALL) you need (not greed, not want, need). Then you WILL ALWAYS have EVERYTHING you need and plenty left over to share with others. 

Some translations say you will have all that you need to abound in every good work.

 

He’s got you, and He is not in the business of letting go or dropping those He is holding on to. He’s got you now and He always will. You are safe in His hands, more than safe, you are engraved on the palms of His hands…so how could He possibly forget you?

 

In my course on Psalm 91 I say again and again that our job is to believe, and when we aren’t believing, we already done lost the whole ball game. That's why satan works so hard to get us to live doubting lives. You choose belief today. The Bible says your work is to believe the One whom God sent. Do that.

 

You will, according to 2 Cor. 9:8, be generously provided for in your needs. And more than that, you are going to have everything you need and plenty left over for what purpose? To share with others.

 

What do you have plenty of? And who are you sharing that with?

 

I have plenty of Bible journals from my daily morning study time, my time with the Lord when I have a pen and a journal open every day. And so, I have plenty to share with others. 

 

That’s just an example of a way to share with others. You can post verses on social media, you can text friends that you’re praying for them, there is so much more that we can be sharing with others from the plenty that God gives us. Take someone to lunch. Make a donation to a ministry, add a bit to your tithe, sponsor a kid to go to camp, support a fundraiser, not everything will be a huge financial donation, but maybe a five dollar bill. You just be like Joseph and obey when God leads, and expect that you are going to have all you need and abundantly. That's the promise,a dn the Holy Spirit put this verse on my heart to add to this episode, to share with in addition to Matthew 1 and 2. Promises made are promises kept with our God. This promise, that He is going to provide all you need, generously, is a promise made and I am counting it as a promise kept on your behalf.

 

Can I repay this verse for you now?

 

Lord, I am coming to You in prayer today, on behalf of the one listening to this podcast episode right now, no matter where they are in the world, in the US, Canada, Kenya, Germany, India, Australia, Poland, Thailand, South Africa, the Philippines, France, Jamaica, UAE, Guatemala, Italy, Nigeria, Peru, Ukraine, Singapore, Brazil…places that I know people hear about your promises on the podcast…and places I don’t know, Lord would you right now at this moment let them know how close You are to them. You are right there, the One who sticks closer than a brother, the One who will never leave them nor forsake them. Show up in their life, in their world, today. Put Your hand of provision and protection on them. Cover them, may Your banner over them be Your love. May Your blessing and favor be on them in ways that comfort them, give them great hope, grow their love and adoration and trust, and Lord, move mountains. Do Your mighty miracles. Bless them richly, abundantly. Generously provide all they need, just as You have promised. Lord, I didn't pick this verse - You wanted me to share it with them. This is Your Word and it is for Your child today. Keep Your Word, as I know that You will. May they have starting now everything they need, and have it always, with plenty left over to share with others. And may they obey as Joseph did, right away, no excuses and no delays. Thank You, Lord, for hearing and answering my prayer on their behalf today. 

 

You are worthy of all honor and glory and power and blessing and we praise Your name.

In the mighty name of Jesus I ask this, Amen. 

It’s always a blessing to pray for you, and I really do mean that. It is a gift that we can give one another that is ends up being a privilege for the one praying. 

 

Be sure to check out the giveaway links and I really do hope you win!

 

Winners will be announced by early July, because of different apps and the way new episodes do auto download to subscribers, and just because it’s summer and I want to make sure as many as possible hear about the giveaway. So early July if you win I will find you…if any of you know about the little girl Willa that we met on vacation poolside at a resort years ago… that’s a Willa quote I just did there - “No matter where you go, I’ll find you.” So if you’re a winner, I’ll find you, just like Willa said.

 

Thanks for making it possible for The Burt (Not Ernie) Show to reach the milestone of 150 episodes. I feel thankful and blessed and blown away, so thanks to you. There’s no show without you!

 

I hope to see you back here next time, and to have you join me on The Prayer Podcast with Jan L. Burt (also, I added my name to the show title for two reasons: to link it to TBNES and also to not confuse it with any other podcast called The Prayer Podcast…to not be like stealing another show name since The Prayer Podcast seems sort of broad.)

 

Links to the new show in the show notes and let me know, like screen shot me your rating or review to JanLBurt@outlook.com or via DM and you’re gonna get bonus giveaway entries. Totally sort of bribing you to help the new show get that extra push, cuz platforms stop pushing your new podcast after a few weeks post launch, and I am hoping to reach as many as I can with prayer. Thanks for your help, it means more than you will ever know this side of eternity. I mean it when I say I am so very thankful for you!

 

See you next time! Bye bye.

The Promise of God’s Comfort Episode 149

Well hello there today, so thankful you’re listening to the podcast for this episode, number 149, and just want to let you know that I’ve got some details about the giveaway items to celebrate episode number 150, which is just about here. I’m giving away things like gift cards for coffee, Amazon, to an online Christian owned small business (who doesn’t like supporting the small biz world?) and some other things. Several prizes, one prize per winner to spread out the fun and your chances of winning. And I’ll be sharing a link to the post with the deets, the details, about how to enter. (Hint: it’s really as simple as leaving a comment on the post either on IG or FB.) So, that’s the news / housekeeping / update… and now, let’s dig into one of God’s promises, shall we?

 

Jan L. Burt (@janlburt) • Instagram photos and videos

 

Facebook

 

You’re listening to The Burt (Not Ernie) Show podcast, part of the Spark Network, now playing in the Edifi app. This is episode number 149.

After wrapping up the series on Hot Topics, which hopefully encouraged you to lean hard on God’s promises even when it feels hardest to do so - now we are moving on to a promise that is full of comfort. And of course, full of hope, because most of us end up much more hopeful, more optimistic, after we’ve been on the receiving end of a whole lot of comfort. 

 

I want to define the word “comfort” first, and then look at the promise from the Bible that offers us comfort. 

 

Comfort: To soothe in time of affliction or distress.

• To ease physically; relieve.

to give strength and hope to

to ease the grief or trouble of

consolation in time of trouble or worry 

a state or feeling of being less worried, upset, frightened, etc., during a time of trouble or emotional pain

 

Isaiah 51:12 (Amplified)

“I, even I, am He who comforts you.

Who are you that you are afraid of man who dies

And of a son of man who is made [as destructible] as grass,”

This is the Lord God Almighty speaking in this verse, and it is a very comforting verse. But if we don’t listen to what God says here, if we refuse to take heed, I don’t know that we can receive the comfort He has for us.

 

God says this: “I, even I, am He who comforts you.”

 

When I am in a bad place, things have gone really poorly and I am feeling it. I'm down, I will say that when I am offered comforting words from say my husband, one of my children, a dear friend, it’s great. It makes a difference. When I get a surprise letter in the good old fashioned snail mail, like the mailbox, that is really comforting. An email, a text, also super comforting. A comment on a post, a podcast review or book review, yeah, all those are very comforting. I think if you are an author, a speaker, podcaster, or something like that, maybe even if you are a pastor, it’s not the worst idea to have a “Happiness File” where you put things that are encouraging, like positive reviews, notes, cards, etc. Not to be vain, I want all of that in Jan’s life to hurry up and die already! But to be a comfort and to remind you to keep going, keep serving Jesus, because words like that can very well be sent your way only because the Lord has put it on the writer's heart to send them to you. Don’t quit serving Jesus. 

 

How much better is it, how much more amazing, when God speaks comfort to us? 

And we can know that it is His will to comfort us because we have these words from the pen of the apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 1:4: God comforts and encourages us in all our troubles so that we will in turn be able to comfort others with the same comfort we have received. The Holy Spirit is referred to as The Comforter in John 14:26. So this is not a Jan-sized idea, comfort from the Lord. I am drawing directly from the Word of God and am not adding anything to it, so be encouraged that you have verses in the Old Testament and the New Testament to assure you that God wants you to comfort you. (And then, He wants you to comfort others…but not with your own means of comforting them, but with the same comfort He gave to you.) 

God’s promise to you here is that He comforts you. “I, even I, am He who comforts you.” This feels pretty personal, doesn’t it? I think He wants you to take this promise personally.

He comforts you. Present tense, today. Also a promise that when tomorrow becomes today He will comfort you. This is an ongoing promise. On a continual basis, your God will comfort you.

I mean it when I say this feels personal and you should take it personally, because it is personal and it is personally meant for you. Right now. At this very moment. Take this personally.

 

Isaiah 51:12 goes on to remind us of the truth that whomever we fear in life, outside of the Lord God Most High, is not meant to be feared. You and I are to fear the Lord and not man. This verse asks why we fear a man, who dies, who is as destructible as grass.

Well, that’s a good question!

Let’s think on it for a moment and be honest in our thinking. 

We tend to be fearful of people because we see what they can do to us. Cost us our jobs. Do us harm in some manner. Take something from us.

But if we step back and look at the bigger picture, the truest truth, are we trusting God above all else, or do we have a fear that God won’t take care of us in some way, shape or form and that is really what drives us in our fear of what man might do?

 

It’s June, summer time here in Kansas as I record this episode. And the lawn has to be mown (and technically I could say mown or mowed in this sentence used in this tense, but I am gonna go with mown) all summer long. Again and again. So, say I take a trip to visit the Flint Hills and I see natural grassland that will not be cut short all summer long. Contrasting my lawn and the grasslands, what’s the real difference come fall? At best, those grasslands will only grow for a season. And my lawn clippings? They are dead and done for as soon as the mower skims across them. So, that’s the point of reference God gives us. Fearing man is not sensible as believers, because they have the lifespan of a blade of grass in the final estimation of all things. 

 

You cannot manage to go through life in this world and never come up against hard things. Hard things develop good character. Romans 5 says it far better than I just did, so read that chapter if you’d like to look into hard times and good character. Hard things are not always bad things. However, scary things are not something God wants you to live under with a sense of overwhelming doom and utter hopelessness.

That is not how you are to live when you follow Jesus.

 

Stuff happens. That’s a guarantee in this life. 

What will we do when that stuff happens? Give in to fear, to despair, or receive the comfort that God is promising in Isaiah?

 

I am going to do my very best to choose the latter. And when I am really feeling the weight of something, I am going to lean fully on the Holy Spirit and ask Him to intervene, help me to be able to choose belief over fear, and then I will trust Him to do as He has promised.

 

Can you do me a solid and find someone to reach out to this week with something that will be hopeful for them?

How has God comforted you in the past?

Can you extend that comfort to someone in the next few days?

 

I think you may be surprised what God might do when you pass on His comfort to others.

 

This episode is a bit shorter than usual, but that’s probably okay since I’ve been long winded on the show recently!

As always when I drop a shorter episode, I am going to challenge and encourage you with this:

Keep your earbuds in as if the podcast were still playing (if you use earbuds…if you don’t, which I don’t, maybe improvise on this a bit). And use the remaining time that would normally be part of the podcast episode and spend it in prayer and also being quiet before the Lord, in a listening posture if you will.

 

This exercise is never going to add up to wasted or squandered time.

It’s so good to do this regularly, just you and the Lord, together in a quiet, focused setting where you are poised to listen and you share your heart with Him. I do hope you’ll do that today.

 

Thanks so much for listening today. Check out that link for the giveaway and also, along with the 150th episode of The Burt (Not Ernie) Show, I’m dropping the first seven episodes of my new podcast, The Prayer Podcast with Jan L. Burt.

The subject matter is pretty self explanatory and I hope you’ll check it out when it launches. 

 

Have a truly blessed day, my friend, and remember that God’s promise to comfort you is a promise you can depend on, always, day after day. 

I’ll see you next time.

Bye bye. 

 

Hot Topics Series - The Promise of Jesus’ Soon Return - Matthew 24

Well hello again, hey there. Hope you are doing well, growing in grace and knowledge and the love the Lord has for you and that you are abundantly blessed as you seek to follow Jesus. Today we are tackling the final subject in the Hot Topics series, and you don’t want to miss this one. We’re taking a look at the promise of the soon return of our Lord, Jesus. Let’s get started.

Summer 2023 Online Prayer Retreat

 

You’re listening to The Burt (Not Ernie) Show podcast, part of the Spark Network, now playing in the Edifi app. This is episode number 148.

Welp, I guess I just couldn’t end this Hot Topics series without getting into the hottest topic of them all. How close are we to the return of Jesus? The Second Coming.

When? How soon? How long? 

 

So of course, the very first verse I’m going to share is from Matthew 24, verse 36, which says that no man, not even the angels, knows the hour or the day of Jesus’ return. 

That’s a true statement, spoken by Jesus. And I am not going to deny the complete truth of that verse. It’s true!

Nobody knows the hour or the day. And that is not a point that can be successfully argued - like, this is the truth that Jesus gave us. And there is no wiggle room or getting around it. 

 

So, in this episode, Hot Topic though it may be, I am not going to talk about dates or times specifically. Nope. That’s unbiblical, and so it goes right out the window and has no place here because the Word of God is the standard (as it should be for any podcast that is talking about God’s promises. No brainer, right?)

 

Next verse I want to look at also from Matthew chapter 24. 

Verse 3 has the disciples asking Jesus this: “Tell us, when will all this happen? What sign will signal your return and the end of the world?” (This is from the NLT).

They are asking a very direct, super specific question. And we are going to take a look at exactly how Jesus answered this very direct, super specific question.

 

Since Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, we can expect that He is telling the truth here in Matthew 24. So this is the truth, according to the King of kings, and we need to pay attention to His words. 

 

Verses 4-8

Jesus told them, “Don’t let anyone mislead you, for many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah.’ They will deceive many. And you will hear of wars and threats of wars, but don’t panic. Yes, these things must take place, but the end won’t follow immediately. Nation will go to war against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in many parts of the world. But all this is only the first of the birth pains, with more to come.”

 

So, as I think about these four verses, what things can we identify as having begun to take place? (Note that doing this is paying attention to the signs of the times, not trying to determine the exact day and hour of His return..two very different things, and we don’t want to neglect being among those who are watching and expecting His return just because we are afraid that somehow that makes us the same as those who say “On this exact day…”)

Many have come saying they are the messiah, and many are still doing that. And keeping our eyes on Israel, we know that there is one there right now that is being propped up as their possible messiah, so yes we can put a check mark next to false messiahs coming to deceive. 

How about hearing of wars and rumors or threats of wars? Big check mark next to that!

And thank the Lord that he told us not to panic at the prospect of wars, because these things have to take place. He doesn’t want us afraid - that’s never the point of prophecy or end times information that is found in the Bible. He wants us anticipating, expecting, and excited about His return, hopeful and sharing that hope with others. Any sense of urgency we have is really here to help us share with others, ya know? Wake ourselves up and then wake others up. When the flood came, all those outside the ark (not among Noah and his family) suffered. Is there anybody you can encourage to get in the ark, so to speak, and maybe encourage them to give their life to Jesus (that’s our version of being in the ark, as Christ followers). Who knows that a right view of end times details, as Jesus gave to us here in Matthew 24, could be the wake up call somebody needs to bend the knee and receive eternal salvation. So, it shouldn’t be the scariest thing in the world to talk about His return. It should be hopeful for us, and also make us hyper-aware that many, many people are not living in the hope that Jesus offers. 

These things must take place, said Jesus, but the end won’t follow immediately. 

Okay, good to make note of. Those two things that we can put a check beside because we do see those things in the world today, they do not signify the end. More is to come.

He goes on to say nation will war against nation and kingdom against kingdom. Check check.

There will be famines and earthquakes in many parts of the world.

Famines, sadly yes, in my lifetime I have seen via news sources more info about horrific famines than I would ever imagine possible. And I hate it, people starving to death. I really do mean it when I say I just hate it.

Earthquakes, big check next to this one. By looking at daily stats at earthquaketrack.com or earthquake.usgs.gov, we can see, in real time, the dramatic increase in earthquakes. In diverse places - all over the world. 25 over the course of the last day is the stat as I am recording this. Hawaii, the DR, Texas, Russia, Santa Cruz islands, Myanmar, Ecuador, Fiji, Puerto Rico, China, Turkmenistan, New Zealand to name a few. Yeah, we can put a check by this one. It’s happening just as Jesus said it would.

But all this, He said in verse 8, is only the first of birth pains. With more to come.

Women who’ve given birth, you understand what this means.

Birth pains get closer together, meaning they happen more frequently, last longer, and are more intense. That is the set-up Jesus gives for the end times before His return.

We meet the criteria for moving on to the next level of birth pains, you might say. 

 

Verses 9-14

“Then you will be arrested, persecuted, and killed. You will be hated all over the world because you are my followers. And many will turn away from me and betray and hate each other. And many false prophets will appear and will deceive many people. Sin will be rampant everywhere, and the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And the Good News about the Kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, so that all nations will hear it; and then the end will come.”

 

I think we can honestly say that persecution of Christians has increased and in many countries being a Christian is punishable by death. A study of the history of Christian persecution shows that it is on the uptick and is happening as Jesus said it would. Bible prophecy is always proven true by history, and always will be.

Side note, in Israel there was a recent proposal to enforce the punishment, or persecution, of Christians who share about Jesus with the Jewish populace. Up to a year in prison re: adults, or two years for those under 18. 

Are Christians hated all over the world for following Jesus? Yes.

Have many turned away from the Lord and betrayed Him and hate one another? Yes. We have seen how the great falling away is happening. It just is. It’s real, it’s very intense, and it is hard to see occurring. 

False prophets on the prowl to deceive many? Yes. Check.

Sin rampant everywhere? Uh, yes. Like ten thousand checks next to this one.

The love of many growing cold?

Gotta be honest as I think about this one. And once you get honest, take a hard look at things around you, and the answer is yes. Are people more loving in your world, your sphere, your workplace, your neighborhood? Or less? We can put a check here.

The Good News will be preached throughout the whole world, so that all nations will hear it.

We all know that this is more possible now, and is happening at a far quicker rate than ever before since Jesus spoke these words, due to the great increase in knowledge which has led to the ability to share with such rapidity, even from a distance. Can’t put a check next to this one yet, since I don’t believe every nation has heard, but we’re getting there. (I used to ask people who would say they wanted Jesus to come again soon, I’d ask if they were giving toward missions that are translating the Bible into the world’s languages, going to the farthest reaches, using technology to reach the unreached…cuz that seemed like a way to put their money where their mouth was, ya know? Want Him to come sooner? Put some dollars toward the work Jesus said would happen, and do it joyfully. Just sayin’!)

 

I’m going to read verses 15-28 and I’d love for you to just listen as I read:

 

15 “The day is coming when you will see what Daniel the prophet spoke about—the sacrilegious object that causes desecration[d] standing in the Holy Place.” (Reader, pay attention!) 16 “Then those in Judea must flee to the hills. 17 A person out on the deck of a roof must not go down into the house to pack. 18 A person out in the field must not return even to get a coat. 19 How terrible it will be for pregnant women and for nursing mothers in those days. 20 And pray that your flight will not be in winter or on the Sabbath. 21 For there will be greater anguish than at any time since the world began. And it will never be so great again. 22 In fact, unless that time of calamity is shortened, not a single person will survive. But it will be shortened for the sake of God’s chosen ones.

23 “Then if anyone tells you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah,’ or ‘There he is,’ don’t believe it. 24 For false messiahs and false prophets will rise up and perform great signs and wonders so as to deceive, if possible, even God’s chosen ones. 25 See, I have warned you about this ahead of time.

26 “So if someone tells you, ‘Look, the Messiah is out in the desert,’ don’t bother to go and look. Or, ‘Look, he is hiding here,’ don’t believe it! 27 For as the lightning flashes in the east and shines to the west, so it will be when the Son of Man[e] comes. 28 Just as the gathering of vultures shows there is a carcass nearby, so these signs indicate that the end is near.[f]

So, will the Temple be rebuilt? Sure seems like it! This will be a truly terrible moment, when the tables turn and the one who seemed like he was going to take care of world peace and of the Jewish populace, demands to be worshiped himself and sets us the object of desecration in the Temple. The daily sacrifices will stop, and the time of the end of tribulation will be in high-gear. We know it’s that period Jesus is referring to when He says “there will be greater anguish than at any time since the world began and it will never be so great again.” Unless that time of calamity is shortened, not a single person will survive. These will be very dark days. Now I am not going to hit on the rapture in this episode, but I will say this: I think the church should be ready to endure hard times, to endure to the end, whatever that end may be, to be committed to Jesus because He is so worth it. The rapture shouldn’t be a ticket out of here, it should be considered a glorious event and as long as we are still here, as His bride, as His church, let’s be willing to suffer for His sake. 

False messiahs and false prophets will rise up and perform great signs and wonders so as to deceive, even if possible God’s chosen ones. Okay, so if you read Revelation you find false prophets doing the miraculous and it will lead to great deception. And in the Bible, when it uses the words “God’s chosen ones” it is usually, if not always and I really think it is always, talking about Israel, His chosen ones. Gentile believers are grafted in, we are the church, we are part of the bride of Christ, Israel is His chosen possession. 

And on that day when He returns, every eye will see Him and He will come like lightning flashes across the sky. This will not be a hidden event. It won’t happen in secret. So anybody saying it has already happened and you just don’t know about it is not being truthful. Jesus said it won’t be hidden, so it won’t be. 

As the gathering of vultures shows there is a carcass nearby, so these signs indicate that the end is near.

 

It’s safe to say the end is near. It’s biblical, even. We need to know the signs of the times so we can do the work with some sense of urgency. People matter. They matter to Jesus and so they ought to matter to those of us who follow Jesus. With no sense of urgency, we just get in a drift and go through life and we aren’t praying and seeking the lost and sharing on our social media and so on. It’s not urgent, and for Americans at least, then it ain’t gettin’ done. Let this be your reminder to apply some urgency to your praying for the lost. Invite that person to church or to Bible study. Who has God put on your heart? What has He put on your heart to do in regard to that person, or persons? Will you now do it? Please?

 

I’m going to finish this episode by reading verses 29-51, but first I want to mention that I have an upcoming online event to invite you to be part of. It’s the Summer 2023 Prayer Retreat. 7 prayer sessions, looking at what the Bible says about prayer and then actual time spent praying, content you can download and use in your own prayer time, and some bonus content. And I am following the Lord’s leading to make my offers super affordable, even to the point of being like dirt cheap. God said do it, and so I am just obeying. It’s $7, like cup of coffee $7 and you can access all the content forever. If you are interested, I’ll put a link. The event won’t be happening until later this summer (I have some stuff coming up first, so it will going live probably the third week of July, but you can get signed up anytime between now and then and I’ll mention it again in the coming weeks. And thanks in advance to everyone who is interested. Prayer changes lives, and I am a firm believer that one of those lives should be yours. And the lives of those for whom you pray. So I really hope you will join me for the Summer 2023 Prayer Retreat).

 

Now, here’s the rest of this chapter, Matthew 24:

29 “Immediately after the anguish of those days,

the sun will be darkened,
    the moon will give no light,
the stars will fall from the sky,
    and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.[g]

30 And then at last, the sign that the Son of Man is coming will appear in the heavens, and there will be deep mourning among all the peoples of the earth. And they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.[h] 31 And he will send out his angels with the mighty blast of a trumpet, and they will gather his chosen ones from all over the world[i]—from the farthest ends of the earth and heaven.

32 “Now learn a lesson from the fig tree. When its branches bud and its leaves begin to sprout, you know that summer is near. 33 In the same way, when you see all these things, you can know his return is very near, right at the door. 34 I tell you the truth, this generation[j] will not pass from the scene until all these things take place. 35 Heaven and earth will disappear, but my words will never disappear.

36 “However, no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself.[k] Only the Father knows.

37 “When the Son of Man returns, it will be like it was in Noah’s day. 38 In those days before the flood, the people were enjoying banquets and parties and weddings right up to the time Noah entered his boat. 39 People didn’t realize what was going to happen until the flood came and swept them all away. That is the way it will be when the Son of Man comes.

40 “Two men will be working together in the field; one will be taken, the other left. 41 Two women will be grinding flour at the mill; one will be taken, the other left.

42 “So you, too, must keep watch! For you don’t know what day your Lord is coming. 43 Understand this: If a homeowner knew exactly when a burglar was coming, he would keep watch and not permit his house to be broken into. 44 You also must be ready all the time, for the Son of Man will come when least expected.

45 “A faithful, sensible servant is one to whom the master can give the responsibility of managing his other household servants and feeding them. 46 If the master returns and finds that the servant has done a good job, there will be a reward. 47 I tell you the truth, the master will put that servant in charge of all he owns. 48 But what if the servant is evil and thinks, ‘My master won’t be back for a while,’ 49 and he begins beating the other servants, partying, and getting drunk? 50 The master will return unannounced and unexpected, 51 and he will cut the servant to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

 

This has been a heavy episode, but so important. Let’s be about our Father’s work in this current day and age, and let’s not forget that He is indeed coming very soon.

Let’s live well while bearing all these things in mind.

 

Lord bless you, I’ll see ya next time and don’t forget, God’s promises are true for you today.

Bye bye. 

Hot Topics Series - The Promise of God’s Shaking - Episode 147

I’m so thankful you’re listening, and my prayer is that you will be blessed and encouraged and reminded that God’s promises are true, and they are true for you. He gives these promises out of the depths of His unending love for His people, and He keeps those promises in the same manner, from the very depths of His love. We cannot separate the God who loves us from the God who keeps His promises to us. They are both true and cannot be untrue, no, not ever. With that, let’s jump into today’s promise.

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You’re listening to The Burt (Not Ernie) Show, part of the Spark Network, now playing in the Edifi app. This is episode number 147.

Shaking.

 

This word could sum up so much of the last three years. If you’ve faced an illness, job loss, have parenting struggles, aging parents, financial concerns, the list is long… this word “shaking” can hit close to home. We’re shook, right? I’m shook. 

It’s uncomfortable and it is unnerving, and this is a very real reason for grabbing hold of God’s promises and refusing to let go. The God who made these promises to you is not going to leave you, forsake you, let you down, abandon you or let go of you. He is holding you tightly and you can trust Him. 

 

That’s what we’re looking at in this episode of TBNES.

 

There are a few verses we find in the book of Hebrews, which is located toward the end of the New Testament, that are going to kind of reframe this shaking issue that has been so real for so many of us. I do think it has hit us all in some manner. Here’s one example: I will order something that I’ve ordered over and over again for years and years, and I will be floored at how much it costs now. This is just one area that has such a broad impact on all of us, just one area. If we compile all the other areas where it’s been a long shaking season, it compiles into something that feels overwhelming.

 

Now the reason I mentioned the cost of just, well, anything and everything these days is because I don’t want someone to stop listening to this episode because they don’t think it applies to them. It really does apply to all of us. And I really don’t want you to miss what I’m going to share about shaking.

 

Because the promise of God’s shaking is too important for us to not know and understand, but also a promise we don’t always see as a good thing. But I think, based on the text we’re looking at today, God sees His shaking as very good, and I believe He wants us to see it that way as well. 

 

Hebrews chapter 12, verses 25 through 29 from the NLT:

Be careful that you do not refuse to listen to the One who is speaking. For if the people of Israel did not escape when they refused to listen to Moses, the earthly messenger, we will certainly not escape if we reject the One who speaks to us from heaven! When God spoke from Mount Sinai His voice shook the earth, but now He makes another promise: “Once again I will shake not only the earth but the heavens also.” This means that all of creation will be shaken and removed, so that only unshakable things will remain.

Since we are receiving a Kingdom that is unshakable, let us be thankful and please God by worshiping Him with holy fear and awe. For our God is a devouring fire. 

Let’s do a quick recap of what came prior to these verses - God disciplines us as His sons, daughters, and it proves we are His children because He disciplines those He loves and punishes the one He accepts as His child. Heb. 12 vs 1-11 talk about this concept of God’s discipline being evidence of His love and of our sonship. 

 

Verse 12 says, “So take up a new grip with your tired hands and strengthen your weak knees. Mark out a straight path for your feet so that those who are weak and lame will not fall but become strong.”

So when we are facing the discipline of the Lord, He wants us to toughen up, mark out that straight path. Nowhere does it say wallow in it, feel sorry for yourself, give up, sit down, pout. Nope. Take a new grip, it says, with your tired hands. God acknowledges you may well be very tired. But then He says to take those tired hands and adjust your grip. And the path you mark out, then and there with new grip in the midst of your own tiredness, ends up being a path so that those coming along after you who are weak and lame will not fall but become strong.

Can you see how the Lord is clearly telling you that what you do when you are disciplined and when you feel tired, weary, fatigued has a big impact on others? This is not exactly the American way…but it is Jesus’ way, so it must become our way.

 

Verses 14-24 tell us to do the work of living at peace with everyone, to work at living a holy life (for those who are not holy will not see the Lord…did you hear that? That seems important!) To look after one another so none of us fails to receive the grace of God (this is a big part of why I have this podcast and why I am starting another podcast, to do my little part in ensuring nobody within earshot fails to receive God’s grace.) And watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many. Ensure against immoral godlessness. And realize that you have come to the assembly of God’s firstborn children whose names are written in heaven. There is no place else where it matters even a smidge for your name to be put down in permanent ink. When the roll is called up yonder, that’s where it matters that your name is put down. Life kicks us around and sometimes we need to be reminded that if our name is on heaven’s rolls, on the books up there, we can endure the kicking around as we await a far better day that is assuredly coming for us. You have come to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant between God and people, and to the sprinkled blood which speaks of forgiveness.

 

That’s what comes first in Hebrews chapter 12. 

And then we land on our verses about the promise of God’s shaking.

After all those awesome, like inspiring awe in us, reminders, the author tells us that we are to be careful. 

When someone says to you, as an adult, to be careful, do your ears perk up? 

This isn’t like your childhood when you let the words “Y’all be careful out there, ya here?” roll off like water on a duck’s back.

As adults, we take those words more seriously because we’ve seen a thing or two, as the Farmer’s commercials say, and we know others have seen stuff too and their warning could save our hide. So, we listen. And our decisions and our behaviors are modified when we listen. 

 

What does verse 25 tell us to be careful of? That we do not refuse to listen to the One who is speaking. One is capitalized, and it refers to the Lord. Don’t refuse to listen when He speaks. His chosen people, the Israelites, did not get away with it when they refused to listen to Moses, an earthly messenger, a great man, a man more humble than any other, but a mere man nonetheless, they did not escape for refusing to listen to him. How much more will we, grafted in Gentile believers, not get away with refusing to listen to the Lord God Almighty? And it’s good to note here that when we shrug off God’s word, when we don’t apply it, believe it, adjust where He is telling us to adjust course, that is in His eyes the same as refusing to listen to Him. Thumbing our noses at God when He stoops down to speak with us. This is dangerous ground, and we have this stern warning so that we will know that, like the Israelites, the only solid ground beneath our feet is the Rock of Jesus, on Christ the solid Rock we must stand, or the ground could still open up beneath our very feet and swallow us whole. It’s a strong warning, but a good one.

 

Don’t reject, in any way, shape, or form, the One who speaks to us from heaven.

 

When God spoke from Mount Sinai, His voice shook the earth. And they were terrified! Covering their ears, crying out Moses to ask God to speak to him and he could pass it along to them because they did not think they could survive, like could not remain alive, if they continued to hear God’s voice. We don’t live in that kind of awe, reverence, astounded that this same God tore the veil so we could come directly into His presence as often as we choose to. We should be floored by this! Do we need a radical wake up call? Perhaps we do. Perhaps we need it so badly that without it we are in very dire straits. Or floating on the doldrums. Either image is frightening, and I want us to miss ZERO percent of what God intends for us to have in this life. One thing He wants for us, as made clear here in Hebrews 12, is to listen when He speaks. Pay attention. Listen well. Because verse 26 and 27 tell us that just as He shook the earth when he spoke at Mount Sinai, he makes this promise (this is the promise for today’s episode, so please check back in and listen up!) - Once again God will shake not only the earth, but the heavens also. A great shaking is coming, my friend. And in fact is already beginning. Does it seem like we are in a snowglobe and the hand shaking it just keeps on shaking and shaking? Like the girl in Finding Nemo, who wouldn’t stop shaking the bag, who shook her fish to death and yelled, “Fishy, why are you sleeping??” We’re in a season of shaking. God will do such shaking Himself, or at times allow the evil one to do the shaking, so that all that needs to be removed falls away. Good fruit remains, securely attached to the vine, who is Jesus. Fake fruit, bad fruit, and even so much of the junk that weighs us down and renders us ineffective for the Kingdom of our God, that stuff falls away in times of shaking. And you know, while it may be hard and seem kind of brutal in the midst of it, the end result is so good. When we step into eternity, we will never wish we’d hung on to the things that hindered us in our walk with Jesus. What will matter will be the Lord, and what won’t matter will be the things of this earth, which is destined to fire and will burn up, just as the Bible says. 

How can God’s shaking be bad when the end result, the promise, is so good? 

Verse 27 - This means that all of creation will be shaken and removed, so that only unshakable things will remain.

 

Look, what we are dealing with these last few years is very intense in so many ways, in the physical realm and the spiritual realm. But it has a purpose when we view it through the lens of the Word of God. You are becoming unshakable. And only that which is unshakable will remain. Pain and struggle and difficulty become very different when we view them through this passage. What feels impossible to make it through becomes endurable, because God has given us the promise that on the other side of this shaking comes something far beyond our wildest hopes and dreams. In other words, it is worth it. Jesus is always worth it!

 

Since we are receiving a Kingdom that is unshakable, let us be thankful and please God by worshiping Him with holy fear and awe. For our God is a devouring fire. Verses 28 and 29 of Hebrews chapter 12.

 

Your God is a devouring fire. Would you prefer to endure this shaking now so that you can receive His unshakable Kingdom, or would you prefer to face the devouring fire that is our God? He cannot be less than He truly is, and He will not bend the knee to our whims and our fancies. He is who He is, and can be none other. He is an all-consuming, devouring fire. 

 

And He is your loving ABBA Father.

When we live knowing that the One watching over us, taking careful note of all that is happening in our lives, is that devouring fire, it brings so much comfort. How can you not fully trust a Father who will be for you a devouring fire? This is the promise of God’s shaking, and while not always comfortable, it is a beautiful promise all the same.

 

Let Him do His shaking, and expect to see amazing things as you receive His Kingdom, careful to listen when He speaks and remembering that His discipline is your proof that you are His child. 

 

I hope you can rest in the assurance of His love in ever increasing measure and trust even the longest, hardest, shakiest of days to Him, knowing that in His capable and strong hands, you are in the safest place you could possibly be.

 

Thanks for joining me for this Hot Topic podcast episode, and I’d like to share a few things about the 150th episode that is coming up very soon, in just a few weeks. My plan is to launch my new podcast, The Prayer Podcast, alongside the 150th episode of The Burt (Note Ernie) Show…which isn’t going anywhere, I’m still gonna keep talking about God’s promises here. The Prayer Podcast will have slightly shorter episodes and will focus on just one thing - you guessed it, prayer. And I will be praying over listeners regularly as well as sharing what the Bible tells us about prayer. 

And I’m also giving away some fun things - gift cards to your favorite coffee shop, an Amazon gift card, and a gift certificate to a small business run by a fellow Jesus lover, and some other prizes too. You’ll hear more about how to enter the giveaway soon, so stay tuned. Oh, and the prizes will be spread out among several winners, just wanted to clarify that not all the prizes go to one winner. Spreading it around and honestly, as many giveaway prizes as I can afford, that’s how many I’ll give away. Episode 150 is a milestone and I want to say THANKS for being part of this show the last few years. 

The Promise of Maturity - Hot Topics Series - Ephesians 4 & Revelation 2 - Episode 146

Well, hey there! Hello and welcome to this episode of the podcast, where we focus on getting the promises of God into the people of God, I.E. we move from knowing what God has promised in the Bible to living in a state of belief that what He has promised will prove true for us. I’m grateful you’re joining me for this episode and I’m excited to dive into another hot topic promise from the New Testament book of Ephesians. 

Jan's books on Amazon

You’re listening to The Burt (Not Ernie) Show, part of the Spark Network, now playing via the Edifi app. This is episode number 146.

Connect with Jan here:

Instagram @JanLBurt

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Facebook Jan L. Burt Author & Podcaster Page

Hot topics. Oh, to be sure, the church has had to square up against a whole slew of them through the centuries. And it is not always fun. The conversations can be challenging at times, when culture and the Word of God clash so intensely. But the hot topics I’m addressing in this series are ones that believers may kind of struggle with, oftentimes without even realizing that struggle. In the last two episodes of the show, we’ve talked about power (and yes, living in light of the power of the Holy Spirit and the power promised to Jesus’ followers in the Bible can be hard to actually do, especially when we find ourselves looking at the state of the world and the heartbreak so many people are dealing with and all the difficult and varied aspects of life in a fallen world). It is a faith stretcher to really believe God’s promise to give us the power to live out the Christian life in a post-Christian world, but the Holy Spirit will not fail us and so, faith stretching or not, it is worth it to make the jump from so-so faith to all-in faith.

 

We have also touched on the hot topic of the promise of forgiveness. The difference between feeling like forgiving someone and deciding to forgive them. Forgiving because God has forgiven you, forgiving simply because He has told us we must forgive. Because if we do not forgive, we will not be forgiven…so it says in Matthew 6:15. Yup, that’s why this is a hot topic!

 

And today we are taking a look at the hot topic, and the promise God gives us in His word, about maturity. 

 

I’m going to read to you some verses from the book of Ephesians, this book is a letter that the apostle Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus. And then I am going to share some words that Jesus gave to the church at Ephesus in the book of Revelation. You know, at this particular point in time, when so much is going on in our world, I wonder if I could safely say that anything I read out of Revelation would automatically qualify as a hot topic subject? Probably. But these words to these churches can also be applied to us, today, in our churches and in our individual walks with the Lord, so hot topic or not, we are going to hit on them, directly and head on and without any wavering or watering down of the Word of the Lord.

 

Ephesians 4:11-16 from the NLT

 

Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do His work and build up the church, the body of Christ. This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ. 

Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of His body, the church. He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love. 

 

Ah, maturity.

The thing we so often emphasize to our teenagers. The thing we bemoan in regard to the “younger generation”. And something we don’t regularly apply to ourselves as disciples of Jesus. 

But, let me tell you, based on this text and the words I’ll share from Revelation in a few minutes, we by golly need to apply them to ourselves. Or we may just find ourselves in a whole bunch of trouble. 

 

God gave certain gifts to the church, and since they are His gifts to give to His church which bears His name and is known as the body of Christ, God’s Son, then I think we need to not negate those gifts and choose to live well in light of what He has given. And living well often means simply being thankful and not wanting something different than what we have. 

 

He gave us leadership. This is good to remember. Leadership is not always perfect, and there are for sure some spiritual leaders who are downright abusive and the Lord isn’t about that. Just as we see again and again in the Old Testament, He does not play around for all that long when the shepherds fail to do what He considers their duty. So let’s just get that out of the way from the get-go. I agree with the Lord and with His word, and that includes Him stating plainly that there is a higher degree of accountability and a very high expectation of caring for the flock, as He says in His word. I don’t condone abuse because God doesn’t. I’ve been under leadership that could care less if you were beat down to smithereens and would even kick you when you were down there because keeping you down can keep you in your place. I’ve know leaders who sin like mad and teach others how to sin more deceptively and never, ever repent, apologize, or move on to maturity. So I do understand the struggles some of you may be facing, or have faced. But God has never led me in those ways, His will was never for those things and far worse things to be happening. And He led me on to safer shepherding, if you will, and some of why I could hear and follow where He led was because I refused to turn away from Him when man was leading poorly in the church.

Leadership is from God. Keep that in mind, and keep trusting Jesus. I promise, He is with you and He will never leave you or forsake you.

Apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers - these are from the Lord and He gave them responsibilities. To equip His people to do His work and to build up the church, His body.

Leaders have tasks, responsibilities. Do you have enough bandwidth in your life for those in these positions and roles to actually equip you and build you up? If you don’t, that’s a mark of immaturity. And if you do, I promise you will mature more and more, week by week, year by year. And that is what God wants!  You to become a mature Christ follower. Immaturity is not of value in the Kingdom of our God.

 

So leadership bears the responsibility of equipping you, but for what? To do God’s work. God has things for you to do that fit in with His Kingdom agenda at this moment in time on His Kingdom calendar. In other words, you matter so incredibly much and your life, your time, matters, too. You are not leftovers, you are not sidelined. Your leaders are equipping you to do the things God has planned for you to be doing. So when you feel convicted or challenged or even encouraged by a message or an admonishment or something you hear in your small group, it may be part of God’s equipping so you can be about His doing. And to build up the church, which includes you. God wants you equipped but not without being built up. Isn’t that comforting to know? How you are doing, like really, how you are doing matters so much to the Lord that He has put leadership in place so that you will be doing well, built up, not torn down.

 

And this will continue until we are mature - now it uses these exact words… until we all come to such unity in our faith (not in our personal likes or dislikes, our hobbies, our meal preferences, what we do for our day to day work, where we live, no… unity in our faith. This isn’t one global amalgamated world wide religion kind of unity. Unity of our faith, our following hard after the Lord Jesus who died to give us true life and real freedom. Unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son. If you and I are not increasing and growing in our knowledge of God’s Son, we are moving in the wrong direction as His people. Are you growing? Every year, month, week, day you should be growing in your unity in the body and your knowledge of God’s Son. Do you know Jesus better than you did last year? Are you measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ? And if you happen to be in some area of church leadership, are you equipping and building up your people? 

 

Verse 14 comes next and it tells us that THEN we will no longer be immature like children.

No longer immature.

Are you ready for this kind of Christian living? 

Don’t answer too quickly, because you need to answer with utter honesty.

Are you ready for this kind of Christian living? There’s a reason this is on the hot topics list! Because it’s touchy and feels dicey and can take us out of our comfort zones and remove us from our ability t o exert control…but that control is only faux control, so really all it does is show us the truth.

 

We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching.

Ahh, now we arrive at the promise that comes with maturity!

We will not be tossed and blown about.

How often have you felt that way? I’m thinking you could open TikTok, scroll your feed for a few minutes, and if your algorithm aims you toward content that is Christian in nature, then in those handful of minutes and thumb swipes, you can feel tossed and blown about by winds of new teaching. So this promise is a good one for us. We can apply it every day, and we need to not be blown around or tossed about. That’s exhausting! God wants us to have clarity, and He has given us the means to that end right here in this passage of Ephesians. 

 

We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth.

Anybody need that? Look, there can be a fair amount of truth mixed in with the lies and we can get confuzled about which way is up, is this the best way to honor the Lord and love people well at the same time? In some arenas, there is zero confusion and it is easy as pie to know right from wrong. But there is deception at play in this world, satan used this tactic in the desert with Jesus when he quoted Scripture in just twisted enough ways to try and get the Son of God to do what he wanted rather than what the Father wanted. Do you think we get exempted from this stuff? We don’t. Satan is as Satan does, and what he does is take the Word of God and twist it just enough to try and trick us with clever lies. So,yes, this promise is one we need on the daily. And we can have it on the daily, provided we will grow in maturity.

 

Maturity matters. 

Probably far more than we realize.

 

Instead of being tricked or influenced by clever lies that sound like the truth, we will speak the truth in love.

This is key.

We won’t be influenced, but rather we will speak with influence. You don’t get to know God’s Son more and more, better and better, and dodge the bullet of clever deceptions and stay silent, say nothing, hide in a corner like a mouse. Nope. You are called in this passage to speak the truth in love. And it goes on, you will grow in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of the Church. So, you get the promise as your own as you mature, find solid leadership to build you up and equip you, you are no longer tossed around and tricked with lies, and as you speak the truth in love you will grow more, in every way (not in a couple of ways but in every way) and will be more and more like Jesus (hello! Isn’t that the end goal? To know God’s Son and to be conformed to His image, literally becoming more and more like HIm? Yes, that is the goal, and it is a great life goal!) He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. Perfectly. He knows best where you will fit best, so as you yield to Him you will be led more and more by Him and will find your place where you fit perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.

 

You will do your special work, in the way that only you can, and others are going to grow as a result. So the speaking the truth in love really is important. You are not called to hide away. You are called to speak the truth in love. The truth, not any old truth, not what feels right at the moment, but the truth (so you need to know what your Bible says or you won’t know what truth you are to be speaking) and to do it in love (not in hate, not in disgust, not in annoyance, not in self righteous piousness, not in a spirit of religion, but in love…sacrificial, generous, goes the second mile love). And then the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.

 

And a healthy, growing, full of love church makes an impact on the people around it and the people within it. Isn’t that what we ought to want to take place? That’s what God wants to come to pass. Get on board with His program and see what He will do. Don’t ask Him to get on board with your program. No, take it from me, just skip that step and leave it in the trash bin where it belongs and get on board with what He is doing and what He wants to do next. And that’s all pretty well detailed in Ephesians 4:11-16.

 

And if you think it will be too hard or too outside your depth to speak the truth in love, and if you wonder how that will help you to grow in every way like Christ, bear in mind that what you teach most is what you know best.

Working on cars? You know it better than ever after you’ve taught it. The longer you teach, the better you know it. Teaching is just speaking the truth in love. When you don’t have an answer for something, you can commit to find the answer and then dig into the Word of God and pray and ask the Holy Spirit to give you the wisdom that you need. He’ll lead you. And good church leadership will help you in this, too. You notice how per this portion of the Bible nobody gets off scot free? Everyone, leaders and laymen, pastors and parishioners, have a call to certain things? And will that call comes the assurance that there will be a day of reckoning, a day to give an account to the Lord. 

 

Okay, home stretch here…Revelation 2:1-7 To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of  Him who holds the seven stars in His hands…I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for My name, and have not grown weary. Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place….Whoever has ears. Let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches….

 

Welp, that’s what Jesus said to the exact people whom Paul wrote the letter to…and what He says to us today.

 

He knows. Nothing is missed by Him. We cannot allow our hurts, even and especially our church hurts, to be a reason to just stop being His people. We can’t! We are not allowed to! Doing so is a luxury of sorts that we cannot afford. The price is too high. He will come and take away our lampstand. We won’t be His anymore. This is so serious, my friend! Whatever it takes, remain in the place of your first love. Love Jesus. Love Jesus. Love Jesus. And if you have turned away from your first love, do what the Lord says and consider how far you have fallen and repent. Do the things you did at first. If you have ears to hear what the Spirit is saying, then please hear. Harken to His call and respond. 

 

Get it? Got it? Good.

 

That’s the end of today’s episode and I’m so thankful you’ve joined me for this third installment of the Hot Topics series. It’s hard, but it’s good. I have a Bible study idea that I call The Good Hard, and that seems fitting for this episode of the podcast. And hey, we are getting close to the 150th episode of The Burt (Not Ernie) Show, and I am planning a fun event / surprise / giveaway for that episode so details to come. 

 

I’d be so honored if you felt like sharing this episode with a friend or even with your pastor - it can be encouraging for those in Christian leadership to know that there are members of the church who are calling the body to live more like Jesus. Trust me, pastors need encouraging too. High five to the church leaders who are all in for Jesus and following the words of Paul in Ephesians chapter 4! 

Hot Topics Series - The Promise of Forgiveness Episode 145

Well, hey there and hello to you today. I hope that the month of May is already a month of blessings, a time when you experience the goodness of the Lord in a whole mess of ways, and that you are able to lean in and draw near to Him each day of this entire month right here at the start of the summer season. And I also hope this podcast, specifically this series on Hot Topics, can be part of your daily walk with the Lord. I’m so thankful you’re listening to the show today as we discuss the second topic in this series…the power of forgiveness. Let’s jump right in.

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You’re listening to The Burt (Not Ernie) Show Podcast, part of the Spark Network, now playing in the Edifi app. This is episode number 145.

 

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Well, here we are again taking a hard look at the hard parts of life in this world, but doing so through the lens of God’s Word. 

 

His promises, they are for us and they for our good and they for His glory. Let’s treat them like we believe that. And handle them with care, if you will. Believing they are true, expecting results based on what God has stated in the Bible, and seeking His glory and honor, not our own. The servant is not greater than the Master, those are the words of Jesus, and they are words that help us when we struggle with forgiveness. I’m not talking about surface level forgiveness, where you paint with such a broad brush and have a “of course we all need grace and forgiveness” - while that is totally true, it can be hard to swallow on a personal level at times. So in total honesty, I will tell you that I have had to forgive and then forgive again and then a few more times the same exact person for one singular issue…because it was big. Bigger than me or my ability to just let it go, let it drift off into the vast sea of forgiveness…I needed help. God-sized help. I needed some promises about this hot topic. And I found them. And they did what God intended for them to do (as His Word always does, it never returns to Him void.)

 

There is an actual difference between forgiveness and the feeling of forgiveness. Feelings are so fickle, aren’t they? Sometimes our feelings are just basically useless. Nacho Libre quote coming at you: You are useless, Ignasio… Have you ever had a time when your feelings were so wrong, so off the mark, that by believing and accepting those feelings you ended up in a world of hurt? Like a whole mess came as a result of trusting in the soundness of your feelings. *Does it sound like maybe I’m speaking from personal experience? Cuz it should sound that way, since that would be the truth.

 

This is what makes forgiveness a hot topic, part of this podcast series. The vast difference that lies between Biblical forgiveness and the “feeling” of forgiveness. They are not the same thing. Sure, we know this. You already know this. And yet, we still struggle with the reality of it in our own lives, in those super hard places where we were so wronged, so damaged, used and abused, or our spouse or our kids or our bff or our parents or grandparents, our pastor…you know, people who mean so much to us, they were done wrong and man it can be a big hurdle for us to forgive what has been done to others by others. Cuz hey look, the horrors of the Holocaust were done to actual people by actual people…and a broad, sweeping, overarching decision to “forgive” the German War Machine is something, I suppose, but whatever that something would be it certainly is not forgiveness. We don’t need to forgive things. We are called by God’s Word to forgive people. And it can be so, so difficult. 

 

Now, what about when you have forgiven, like you really truly have, but then out of the seeming blue, this anger arises and oh what am I to do with these emotions, they are strong and powerful emotions, and I already forgave! Why is this reemerging? Well, there can be a ton of reasons why it’s cropping up again, and what I have found is that often we really did forgive. And then, God allows a layer of something that needs healing in us, for our own good and for His glory, to show up, to appear, and then, by choosing to forgive yet again, there is like some maturity and healing and growth that takes place. God uses it for our good, and for Kingdom purposes because it invariably leads us to have more compassion, more empathy, opens new doors to minister to people (which is really a beautiful way to point them to Jesus, the One who holds their eternal life in His hands). So sometimes, for sure, we have to forgive. And then, forgive the same person for the long-past offense or crime against us (you can phrase it any number of ways - the wrong thing done to us or to our loved one). It can feel like we took several steps backward when that feeling came up again and we had forgive again. But what if it is actually a path to several big leaps forward? Not baby steps forward, but giant leaps forward? Spoiler alert: that’s actually what is going on in our spiritual life, our spiritual development, when we forgive the same person for the same issue yet again. 

 

Forgiveness is a heart issue. But we don’t have to feel all warm and fuzzy in our “heart” in order to really extend forgiveness. We can feel just as upset after we genuinely forgive someone as we did the moment before we choose to forgive. Forgiving from our heart doesn’t mean we will “feel” some certain way; it means we choose some certain way. And that way is the way of Jesus, the One who died for us to receive forgiveness. If you struggle with the way you feel, don’t confuse that with having an unforgiving heart. Not necessarily the same thing. 

 

Forgiveness is a decision. And it isn’t a decision we should put off until we have a change of heart or feel like forgiving. 

 

Extend it today, because in light of the Bible verses I am about to share with you, it is a really bad decision to put off, even for one single solitary day. 

 

Ephesians 4:32 says in the ESV - Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

God forgave you. So you also must forgive.

 

Mark 11:25, the very words of Jesus, from the ESV - And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.

Forgive who? Of what?

Anyone. Of anything.

And then what? 

Your Father who is in heaven will forgive you of your, in the plural, trespasses.

 

Matthew 6:15, more words in red, words Jesus Himself spoke, still referencing the ESV - But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

 

Well now, there is some bit to those words! Like, ouch. I feel that. And it is painful. Jesus says I must forgive, because if I don’t, I won’t be forgiven. Those are His words. And I am pretty sure He was serious when He spoke them, and is equally serious about forgiveness today. 

We have to do it, this act, this decision, of forgiving. We have to. We must. Because our Lord, our Master, our King, says so.

 

Matthew 26:28 - For this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for the many for the forgiveness of sins. Jesus speaking (from the ESV).

 

Think about that. How can we not make the decision to forgive when this is what it cost our beloved Savior? If we love Him, it should not be easy for us to refuse to forgive. Hopefully, as we grow up to more and more maturity in the Lord, we will be more and more unable to extend forgiveness, and quickly!

 

Luke 23:34, spoken by Jesus while He was on the cross - And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” 

 

Oh, this just wrecks me. How dare I not forgive? Oh Lord, make me quick to forgive! When I don’t think I can do it, may Your Spirit move and enable me to! To only forgive, to always forgive. I need to live my life like that. 

 

Matthew 6:12, from the Lord’s prayer - And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 

Jesus was teaching His followers how to pray (not a by rote, verbatim, able to spew it out each day from memory while scrolling Instagram or running through my to-do list, not even engaging as I pray… how to pray, not what exact words to say, cuz I’m not sure that by rote not even clued in stuff can really be called praying…) And so, as He was teaching them how to pray, this was part of that “how”. 

Forgive. Just like you’ve been forgiven. Remembering to be grateful to God for the gift of forgiveness makes the act of forgiving so much easier. I have no right to hold a grudge, to refuse to forgive. I’ve been forgiven of so, so much. And I need to make the choice to forgive a part of my prayer life. Did you catch that? Lord, how should we pray? Teach us to pray! 

Pray like this: forgive us, as we have also forgiven.

 

When forgiving is part of our praying, believe me you, things change as to how much sway our little old feelings have over us. It reframes things, and it refocuses things.

 

I have two more verses to share, both from the New Testament, and I chose them intentionally, because I think it is really a big deal to know what the early church was instructed to do about a certain topic and then for us, the modern church, to do what the book says. 

 

Matthew 18:21-22 (ESV) - Then Peter came up and said to Him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.”

Some versions say seventy times seven. And I have read that the implication was one person sinning against one other person this many times in a single day…the new round of forgiveness would start again the next day. (And for the Jewish people, each day begins as the sun sets, so each evening would be time to let out that deep sign and begin forgiving again…as in, you literally would not allow the sun to go down on your anger since the new day was beginning as the sun was setting.)

 

Colossians 3?13 - Bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive.

 

It’s not my intention to push you around with the Bible, to shame you (because shame is a tool and tactic of the enemy, and God does not want His people to use satan’s means to try and accomplish His will, so there is no guilt or shame in this message today.)  

I just want you to hear the Word of God on this very hot topic, and to know that you don’t have to feel like forgiving in order to actually forgive. It’s just a decision, it is a simple but important act of obedience to what our Lord has told us we must do. And we must forgive, or we will not be forgiven.

 

Oh yeah, this is for sure a hot topic.

But what promise for us, what hope for us, when we live forgiving others. We cannot even begin to imagine how the Lord will use the life of one of His followers who is so all-in when it comes to forgiving that they don’t know how not to forgive. What might He do with such a life?

You could be that one.

 

Don’t wait another day, another hour, if you know you need to do some forgiving. Do it now, make the decision, and watch God be honored and blessed and bless you in return, because He is such a generous and loving God. 

 

Thanks for joining me today for Part Two of the Hot Topics series.

Episode 144 - Hot Topics Series - The Promise of Power

Hey there and hello to ya today. So glad you are listening to the podcast and hey, I am kicking off a new series on the show called “Hot Topics”. Not exactly the kind of things we might consider hot topics, per se, but some promises we find in the Bible that seem a little bit hard to believe in our very own personal lives. But these are promises God has given us in His Word, hard to believe or not. And I am excited to dig in and stretch our faith as we choose to believe that these promises are true for God’s people. 

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You’re listening to The Burt (Not Ernie) Show, part of the Spark Network, now playing in the Edifi app. This is episode number 144.

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Hot topics. 

 

I have to admit, I am feeling a bit hesitant about this… I mean, it feels awfully big to address the proverbial elephant in the room, right? And in the room of Jesus followers, well, I guess it feels sort of extra big.

 

The first hot topic promise we will look at is the promise of power.

 

Now, the reason this is a hot topic is simply because so many of us do not live with much, if any, power from the Lord in our lives. If we’re honest, we can admit that, right? But can we fairly lay the blame for our semi-powerless Christian lives at the Lord’s feet? Or should we say, with a lot of transparency and honesty, that the devil is really good at duping us into thinking either A) we are living in the power Jesus promised us or B) we don’t know what that ought to look like in our daily life, so we don’t pray and ask for it or C) it never really comes to mind at all. 

 

Let me read you a verse from the book of Acts, chapter one, verse 8. The Amplified says, “But you will receive power and ability when the Holy Spirit comes upon you; and you will be My witnesses (to tell people about Me) both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the ends of the earth.”

 

These are words in red, the very words of Jesus, spoken after His death, burial and resurrection, before He ascended to heaven. He said this, and I expect that He meant exactly what He said.

He didn’t misspeak. 

That’s just not a possibility with the Lord.

So we know what Jesus said, and we know He meant it, so what comes next? For us to live in a state of belief that this is a promise for us and He will keep this promise to us, in us, through us. 

 

Now, you do need to know Jesus as Lord and Savior for this promise to be your promise. And I think when you yield your life to Him, when you repent and receive His forgiveness and the gift of eternal life with Him, and then obey Him, you are sealed with the Holy Spirit. That’s pretty Biblical. In the book of Acts, after Jesus ascended to the Father, the disciples and other believers, men and women, gathered in the upper room and when they were there, praying, and waiting for the Holy Spirit (which is what Jesus told them to do) then the Spirit came in like a rushing wind and they had flames of fire, tongues of fire on their heads, and they all received the Holy Spirit. In other places in Acts, we see the apostles praying that new believers would receive the Holy Spirit. I think you can for sure go to your pastor and have him pray for you to receive the Holy Spirit, and I don’t see in my Bible how that would be wrong. It’s the way the first century church did things, ya know? 

 

Because the promise is that we will receive power and ability when the Holy Spirit comes upon us. Now you may be thinking this was only for that select group of people at that time, and I want to share a verse from John, chapter 14, verse 16. And I’ll stick with the Amplified to read this for the sake of continuity. It says, and these are the very words of Jesus and in this portion of Scripture He had a lot to say, John 14, 15, 16, to His disciples but also to all who would believe on His name later on (that’s you and me, right). So John 14:16 says: “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper (Comforter, Advocate, Intercessor - Counselor, Strengthener, Standby) to be with you forever.”

 

It’s always a good thing to prove the Bible by the Bible, if you would. When you find verses that explain other portions of the Word of God, that’s proving the Bible by the Bible. And that is what John 14:16 does with Acts 1:8. Jesus has asked the Father to give you the Helper, the Holy Spirit. And I don’t think you are the exception, the only child of God who gets left out. That’s really not how our God works, thankfully!

 

This really is your promise. And we really do want to kind of maximize this one in our lives. I mean, think about who will benefit once the people of God are all living in a state of Holy Spirit power. Your family. Your local church, and the global church. Your neighbors, your coworkers, your extended family, your community, your city and state, the nation, the world. This impacts so many people. Your circumstances, well, how can they get the best of you when you are living in those circumstances filled with the power of the Holy Spirit? The same power that raised Jesus from the grave dwells in you. (That’s straight from Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus, Ephesians 1:19-20). The same power that raised Jesus from the grave now dwells in you. There’s a hot topic promise from the Bible, to be sure!

 

I mean, how do you like them apples?

That’s the power Jesus was talking about in Acts 1:8. Dead man raised up out of the grave power. There is no other comparable power in the world, in the universe. 

It’s His intention, and that should make it our expectation.

I should live expecting that what the Lord has promised is going to be my reality. 

 

Now it’s a hot topic, for sure.

But maybe that’s mostly due to the fact that we just don’t live in His power, for the most part. 

Honestly, we are sort of lulled to sleep in a spiritual sense by the norms and stresses and distractions of our lives and of the times in which we live.

It’s almost automatic to be lulled, am I right? Don’t have to work at it, just sort of drift into a lull. Keep scrolling. Keep flipping through channels. Keep working on the next project, working toward the next goal in life… all these things can lull us to sleep spiritually. And when that happens, we give little thought to the power of the Holy Spirit in us.

 

And that seems like a win for the enemy, that dirty dog the devil.

I don’t know about you, but I am so sick and tired of the devil getting W’s. I would love it if he had no further marks in the Win column. When we live in the power and ability, as the Amplified says, of the Holy Spirit, all we do is win and all those tallies for the devil end up in the L column, all losses for the evil one. 

 

For that to be true, you and I have got to get back in the game. Not bystanders, not spectators, but victors through Christ Jesus. More than conquerors in Christ. We’ve got big promises! Let’s start living them out. You know, in the Old Testament when the Israelites finally were ready to cross the Jordan River after forty long years of wandering in the desert, those men who were assigned to carry God’s Ark of the Covenant had to put their feet into the Jordan River, albeit at flood stage, so like think of a river overflowing its banks, and when they did that, out of obedience to the Lord, then the water stopped flowing and the Bible says it heaped up in a pile all the way back to a town called Adam. They had to get their feet wet, and then the promised miracle happened. Sometimes we haven’t gotten our feet wet. We’re angry at God for not moving us forward, for not keeping His promises, but our car is in the garage, in park, keys out of the ignition, doors locked, garage door down, and we’re inside the house. Is that a driveable car? You already know this saying, “God doesn’t drive parked cars.” Well, it can sure be true, can’t it? You may have to get your feet wet, get back in the game, He may be calling you to step out in faith. If He is, then just obey Him. And see what He will do next. 

 

He wants to keep every single promise, you cannot convince me otherwise. And He also is bringing us to a place of maturity, making us more like His Son, Jesus. That’s sanctification. You don’t want your children to be thirty-five and acting like they are two. Neither does God, our good Father. Step out in faith if that is what He is asking you to do. And know that the promise He has made here in Acts chapter one, verse eight, is going to prove true. Believe it. 

 

Expect to have power and ability in your life. Be a witness for the Lord, be part of the reach Jesus talked about here, even to the ends of the earth. Be part of that! The power isn’t about us, really. It’s about honoring our God, bringing Him glory, and reaching people for Him because He loves them. John 3:16, for God so loved. So loved! You know the verse as well as I do. Let’s love well and we do that when we love others, not when we love ourselves. (Can I say that again, because it kind of matters quite a lot…)

 

Acts 17 verse 6  in the ESV says: And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also..”

 

Okay, so obviously I shared a verse sort of like jumping in right in the middle of a movie, at a super critical and exciting part. So these believers had been making some waves (and anybody who ever makes a real difference in this world, maybe especially a good kind of difference, makes waves - that’s just the reality, the wave makers are the change agents, that’s just the way it is). They had made an impact, influenced some people, disrupted the status quo (the status quo has changed, son… that’s my movie quote for this episode…bonus points if you know what movie that is from…) These men have turned the world upside down.

 

There are far worse things that could be said about us. 

I’d be honored to turn my little corner of the world upside down for Jesus’ name and for the Kingdom of our God.

 

But we cannot do that in our own might (which is basically nill). We need the power that comes from the Holy Spirit, and then we can do great exploits for our King. 

 

This promise is for you today. And I hope that you can walk in the fullness of the power the Holy Spirit wants to pour out into your life and see people’s lives changed and God glorified. My prayer for you today is that you will receive power and ability from the Spirit of the Living God who indwells you, and that you will put the key of your life into the ignition, turn it over and ask, “Where we going today, Lord? Cuz I’m all in.”

 

Lord bless you today, and if this episode has encouraged you, I’d love for you to share it.

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Episode 143 - The Promise of Hebrews 6:18 - It Is Impossible for God to Lie

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Hello to ya today, welcome back to the podcast (and if you’re new to the show, can I just say how excited I am that you’re listening today?). You know, talking about the promises God has given us in the Bible is a privilege that I am highly aware of and so grateful for. And today, we are looking at a promise found in the book of Hebrews that will encourage us and bless us in so many ways. Ready to talk about? Let’s jump right in.

You’re listening to The Burt (Not Ernie) Show podcast, part of the Spark Network, now playing via the Edifi app. This is episode number 143.

Hebrews 6:13-20 NLT

13 For example, there was God’s promise to Abraham. Since there was no one greater to swear by, God took an oath in his own name, saying:

14 

“I will certainly bless you,
    and I will multiply your descendants beyond number.”[c]

15 Then Abraham waited patiently, and he received what God had promised.

16 Now when people take an oath, they call on someone greater than themselves to hold them to it. And without any question that oath is binding. 17 God also bound himself with an oath, so that those who received the promise could be perfectly sure that he would never change his mind. 18 So God has given both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us. 19 This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. It leads us through the curtain into God’s inner sanctuary. 20 Jesus has already gone in there for us. He has become our eternal High Priest in the order of Melchizedek.

 

Chapter 7, verse 25 -

25 Therefore he is able, once and forever, to save[e] those who come to God through him. He lives forever to intercede with God on their behalf.

 

These are incredible verses of encouragement for us!

 

Here we are, followers of Jesus in 2023, who can bank on the fact that these words are true for us. They are for us, and they show us that our God is for us.

It’s really easy to lose that truth, isn’t it? Sure, this is great stuff, but my life doesn’t seem so great right now and anyway, maybe this just isn’t meant for me, doesn’t apply to me.

Look, if it is for freedom that Jesus set you free, and it is according to the book of Galatians, then these verses are for you and they are not for down the road, later on, to give you hope that is far out there somewhere, but leave you hopeless in the here and now. That sounds like a ploy the devil, our sworn mortal enemy if you will, would use. Oh, sure, give ‘em some hope, but extend it out into the future, into a vastness… If we get on that path and stay on that path, eventually we will walk that path directly into a pit of discouragement. The Lord wants to encourage you now, as in RIGHT NOW. And when the future gets here, when later on become right now, He will encourage you again. But you don’t need to wait around until the time comes when God’s promises and His encouragement will be for you. This is for you, and it is for now, today, this very moment. 

 

Do you think Abraham had any encouragement and blessing from walking as closely with the Lord as he did? Or do you think he only had despair as he awaited the fulfillment of God’s promise? Do you think we can learn anything from the life and the attitude of Abraham? Of course we can! Abraham waited patiently, and then he received what God had promised.

Good counsel, solid advice. If God has made you a specific promise and it hasn’t happened YET, keep waiting with patience, with expectancy, growing in your belief that what He said is what will be, and as you wait, keep loving the Lord with passion and fervency. When the promise is fulfilled, will it be sweet or will it be bittersweet? One of those is a better choice, by far. 

 

It goes on to talk about binding oaths. Look, people used to take it really seriously when they used the words, “I swear!” And Jesus took those words so seriously that He said we should not swear by or on anything or anyone, but let our yes be yes and our no be no. Oaths must be serious then, right?

God bound HImself with this oath. 

Think about that for a moment.

He bound Himself.

So that those who received the promise could be perfectly sure that He would never change His mind. Can you even? 

Like, why do we ever give ourselves permission to feed our doubts? To fuel our own fears? To wonder and then to wander? When The God who bound Himself with an oath did so in order that we could be perfectly sure He will never, ever change His mind.

A promise made is a promise kept with our God.

That’s who my God is. This God of the Bible, He has never broken a promise. 

Vs 18 says God has given His promise and His oath.

These two things are unchangeable. It is impossible for God to lie.

 

Okay, so I guess if I had to get down to the heart of this episode, the one handful of words that I want to stick with you like glue, it’s this right here.

It. Is. Impossible. For. God. To. Lie.

 

Ain’t gonna happen, my friend. Ain’t gonna happen to you because it isn’t possible. Zero percent probability. 

It is impossible for your God to lie to you.

Can I be more direct somehow? More blunt? More frank with you? 

In the military, they say, “Permission to speak freely, sir.” and the reply is usually, “Permission granted.”

I’m speaking freely to you, and doing so with the permission granted by Hebrews 6:18

 

This is the truth. My question is, is this your personal truth?

How are you doing at living as if this is true for you? This promise that it is impossible for God to lie? How are things in that department of your life?

Listen up, buttercup; this promise is reality whether or not you believe it. It’s true, so why not just accept that and move forward knowing it as a fact? 

Isn’t believing this a big, big part of receiving and living in God’s love? His very personal, completely unending love for you?

 

Let me read all of verse 18 once more:  So God has given both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us.

 

Have you fled to Him for refuge? If you know Jesus, you have given your life to Him, received His payment for your sins, then you have indeed fled to Him for refuge. (And important to note here, if you have done that but have not yet been baptized, don’t wait. We have two sacraments, those are communion and baptism. Go ahead and get baptized as soon as possible if you have yet to do so.) 

So those who have fled to the Lord for refuge can, and should, have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us.

Look, not everything has come to pass yet, right? So hold on! Keep holding on! Do not let go! And have great confidence because you aren’t holding on to thin air, to anything this world offers, to yourself or to your pastor or spouse or parents. You are holding on to hope, and that hope actually has a name. Jesus. 

 

This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. It leads us through the curtain into God’s inner sanctuary.

Strong and trustworthy. Not weak and unworthy of our trust. Do we act like this is true? Boy, we sure ought to. Nothing weak about our God. Nothing untrustworthy about Jesus. And it leads us through the curtain into God’s inner sanctuary. (Talk about this briefly.) Here is what verse 20 says: 20 Jesus has already gone in there for us. He has become our eternal High Priest in the order of Melchizedek.

Sometimes I really do think we forget how blessed we are, how good we have it, what has been given to us by Jesus. These verses help me remember what I am far too inclined to forget in the day-to-day. 

Now we jump to the next part of the book of Hebrews, chapter 7, verse 25.

25 Therefore he is able, once and forever, to save[e] those who come to God through him. He lives forever to intercede with God on their behalf.

 

Huge, huge promise here. He, Jesus, is able, once and forever, to save those who come to God through Him.

And He lives forever to intercede with God on their behalf.

Did you catch that? Like, did that hit you upside the head and sort of rattle your cage and startle you? It should! Every time we read or hear this verse we should be startled! 

He’s got you. And He lives to intercede for you.

He is taking you before the throne of the Father today and interceding for you. 

Is that not great news? A great reminder that you never, ever walk alone through the things in this life, not one single thing and not for one single moment? 

 

He cannot lie to you. That would be impossible. And He always intercedes for you. Which makes all things possible. 

Once more for the folks in the back.

Hebrews teaches us that God cannot lie to you - that would be impossible.

And Jesus always intercedes for you - which makes all things possible.

Today, I want to encourage you to lean the full weight of your life, all the ups and downs and ins and outs of it, onto these verses. They are yours, my friend. And they are yours right now, today, in this very hour.

Thanks so much for listening today. I’d love to connect with you and you can find me via the social medias at the links at the top of the show notes for this episode. And to all who shared the last several episodes, thank you so much. Getting the Word of God spread as far and wide as possible is the goal, and I am very blessed to be a small part of what the Lord is doing in this world. See you next time and Lord bless you today!

Episode 142 Psalm 23 & Resurrection Hope

The Power of God's Will - 40 Days of God's Promises Devotional on Amazon

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Well, hey there. Welcome to this week’s podcast episode. I’m the host of the show, Jan L. Burt, and I am thankful you’re taking the time to listen to episode 142. It is early April of 2023 as I record this episode, and we are in the midst of Easter week. And the Lord impressed Psalm 23 on my heart for this week’s show. I’m excited to jump in and talk about this well-known psalm and how it can bring us hope as we look toward Resurrection Sunday.

You’re listening to The Burt (Not Ernie) Show, part of the Spark Network, now playing via the Edifi app. This is episode number 142.

So for this episode, I’m going to read verses from Psalm 23, probably going to stick with the Amplified Bible today, and also talk about Jesus and the Resurrection and the hope we have. Hope that did not exist beforehand. You know, hope is kind of like gold in that it is valuable in a special kind of way. Like wedding bands, those have a special value, different than other jewelry. Hope springs eternal, that’s how the saying goes. And when it is hope based in Jesus, that’s the truth. Eternity is placed in the hearts of mankind by God as one of the many means He uses to draw us to Himself. He does not want anybody to perish, to spend eternity apart from Him (and apart from God, well, that means eternity in hell. Hell is a real place, sorry if you were taught differently, but the Bible makes it perfectly clear that hell is real and seriously, I am going to take the authority of the one who died for me over any other so-called authority. The founders, leaders, gods of other religions did not go from God to a baby to a man who was crucified, who went willingly to the cross, and rose again. Christianity is different in that regard, not like any other religious system that has ever been. And so, yes, I do believe that hell is real and has been prepared for satan and his demons and those who do not yield their life to Jesus don’t get heaven.) 

 

Hope. It is critical for the disciple of Jesus. We need it, and He provides it. 

 

Verse one - The LORD is my Shepherd (to feed, to guide and to shield me), I shall not want.

 

1.  

There’s that powerful present-tense verb! Not was, not will be at some point later on, but is, right now, currently.

 

The Lord is my Shepherd. He guides us. Isn’t that great news, hopeful news? Did Jesus stop guiding us after the Ascension? No! He is guiding us right now, and He is a very good, very trustworthy Shepherd. If you need guidance, He has it for you. That’s the first thing I notice when I read this psalm and think of Easter. I have guidance now, and I didn’t have that before Jesus saved me. Whenever I need it, I have it. Boy, that’s awfully good news! 

 

And the Lord feeds us, His sheep, as He is our Shepherd. What areas of your life seem hungry or even starved? You’ve heard of attention starved children, right? Do you feel attention starved? Are you starving or even just slightly hungered in any part of your life right now? The Resurrected Jesus is the One who can feed you. You are not going to lack, you shall not want. I know that seems like too big of a promise for God to keep. We can all evaluate the state of the world, personal experiences, people who did not seem to be taken care of and we can use all those things as our legit reasons to just decide not to believe passages like this one. 

But to what end? My New Testament says that he, or she, who endures to the end will be saved. Not she who punches out when it gets challenging to believe all the things the Bible promises. Pray on those things that try to trip you up, talk to God about those exact areas where you are tempted to doubt Him, let Him comfort you, speak to you on that issue, encourage you as in give you courage that you need to keep on believing even when it seems impossible, and then move forward with the Lord. That’s enduring. And that is a very different thing than many of us do when we bump up against doubts. When we work harder at enduring in our jobs than we do in our, say, marriages, our parenting, our friendships, and our walk with the Lord, that’s an indictment. Every one of us has heard that word indictment a bazillion times the last couple of weeks, and the reason is it’s a serious thing to be indicted. So, we don’t need the indictment on our own lives of working harder at enduring in our work or to run a marathon or our hobbies or or or than we do in our enduring with the Lord. One is vastly more critical than all the others combined. 

 

He said he would feed you. Ask Him to, and be specific. I need this many dollars to pay the car insurance this month. Believe He will keep His word to you. And keep on loving Him, serving Him, enjoying being a child of God while you wait with expectation for Him to do the feeding. Won’t He do it? 

 

And to shield you, to shield me. When you need some protection, some extra covering, He is the One who can take care of you by shielding you. He isn't saying He will send a shield to you but that He will shield you. I love that. He is close to you, right there with you in those hard times. The phone rings, you see the number, the stress starts to increase and guess what? He is there with you, in that moment, and He will guide you, shield you, feed you. And without the Cross, without Easter, you and I do not have hope for this promise. Easter changed everything, and shouldn’t it also keep changing things for us day after day after day until we finally see our Savior face to face? 

 

End of verse 1 says I shall not want.

Believe this to be true, and true for you. God does not want you living in a state of want, feeling alone and maybe even something like an orphan. He wants you to not want, because He is taking care of you continually. He won’t miss some critical thing and say OOPS, my bad. That would be ridiculous. So don’t live your life as if the ridiculous were reality. It isn’t, it never will be. You shall not want. Because God says to. And because Jesus rose from the dead to finalize all of this, for eternity. 

 

Verse 2 - He lets me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still and quiet waters.

Sometimes, some days, we need rest. We need to take it easy. And guess what? Sometimes we don’t want to. We want Him to re-energize us to keep doing more, keep pushing forward, keep on keeping on. But what if it is time to rest, to be led by the still and quiet waters for a while? What if that is the season He has for you right now? It’s easy to be so used to being busy that we feel “off” when we slow way down, but when God says this is that time for you, may it be unto you as He desires it to be. There is a time for every season under heaven, and one of those times will be green pastures and quiet waters. Peaceful. 

Easter is the ultimate promise of peace, the ultimate peace accord, the only one that will last and stand the test of time. Be at peace this Easter, because Jesus died to give you that peace.

 

Verse 3 - He refreshes and restores my soul (life); He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.

 

Whenever I run into the wall and I’m just done, and I need some restoring refreshing, well, I can actually have it. God isn’t offering it and then saying nah nah nah nah boo boo, you can’t catch me, you can’t have this. It’s ours! And it is continually, you won’t use it up if you have a need and then another one real soon. Life is hard. The Lord knows that. And so He has made provision. This is that provision. He will restore and refresh, and Easter reminds us of that perhaps more than any other time of the entire year, doesn’t it? 

And He leads us in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.

When you and I bear His name, He doesn’t forget that. He does things for His name’s sake. How much less would His name be misused, even defiled, if we really bore this in mind? He leads, so I need to follow that path of righteousness He is leading me on. Cuz it’s about His name, not mine. Would it be better for us if we thought about that more often? Do the right thing, go the way He leads, for His name’s sake? You bear His name as a Christian. Why not pause and reflect on that this Easter? Look what He did for you, for me, can we not follow where He leads and realize when we don’t follow, when we choose not to walk in paths of righteousness, we don’t represent our God properly? We slander His name? Let Him refresh you and restore you this Resurrection Sunday. And also, let Him lead you. Where He leads, will you follow?

 

Verse 4 - Even though I walk through the (sunless) valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod (to protect) and Your staff (to guide), they comfort and console me.

 

Jesus faced death on our behalf, and then He dealt death a final death blow. 

When you walk through those sunless places, remember how He defeated death for you. When evil seems scary, don’t give in to even a smidgen of fear because Jesus secured the victory at Calvary. He is with you, literally the Spirit of the Living God dwells within you, and so, you need not fear. 

He has His rod to protect you, let Him fight off your enemies and foes, and His staff will guide you, so when you feel that nudge, that tap of His staff to get you back on track, don’t get annoyed or feelings hurt or any of that. Instead, be grateful that you get to experience your Good Shepherd's love and care and attention to all the details in your life and allow these to comfort and console you. It’s a blessing to be bumped and reoriented by the staff of our Risen King. Not everyone has this blessing. Rejoice in it. Thank Him for it. It’s a tremendous gift that Easter ensures for us.

 

Verse 5 - You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You have anointed and refreshed my head with oil; My cup overflows. 

 

Sometimes, right in the middle of the mess, He is going to have you sit down to a feast. A well prepared meal, a well set table, in the presence of your enemies. Sometimes God shows up, shows off, and shows out by feeding us right where they can see it all. Let Him do what He will, when He chooses. Let Him handle things and often, the way He handles them will be very surprising for you and for your enemies. And don’t try to pretend you don’t have any enemies. You do. If not, then beware when all men speak well of you. Jesus said those words. If you are living for Jesus, you will have enemies. Let the Shepherd handle things. Let Him set that table for you to feast in their presence. Let Him.

 

And when He anoints your head with oil, when He refreshes you, when you are filled up to the tippy top and have a renewed vigor and sense of purpose, thank Him, then do as He leads. 

 

Your cup will overflow. Easter is the perfect time to get blessed with an overflowing cup.

 

Verses 6 - Surely goodness and mercy and unfailing love shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell forever in the house and in the presence of the LORD.

 

This is the big one, the kicker, the finale of the 23rd Psalm

 

Surely.

Not maybe, not ifs here. Surely.

Goodness and mercy and unfailing shall (that means will!) follow you all the days of your life. All of them. 

 

Celebrate this promise this Easter. 

Then, you will be living in His presence all your days and will just one day move into His presence in eternity and will dwell in the house and presence of your Lord forever.

 

That’s Easter, my friend. Rising from the dead makes this your reality, now and forever. 

 

Lord, may we stay near to You and depend on You and believe You for Your every promise. Your goodness toward us knows no bounds, and this Easter we celebrate You and You alone. Until we are blessed to be with you eternally, we will praise Your name and live for You in this life. May we be an example of Your love to a watching and hurting world, and may Your Kingdom come and Your will be done on earth just as it is in heaven.

Thank You, Jesus, for giving Your life and shedding Your blood so we could live forgiven and free. We glorify You this Resurrection Sunday.

Amen

 

Thanks so much for joining me today, and I hope to see you back here next time.

If this episode encouraged you, I’d love for you to share it. See you next time!

Keeping Oil in Your Lamp - Matthew 25 Episode 141

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Well hello there, welcome to this episode of The Burt (Not Ernie) Show. This week I’m going to share from a passage in the New Testament, from the book of Matthew, and it is one of the parables that Jesus taught. There’s a lot of hope in this parable, and we need that, wouldn’t you say? We need faith, we need hope, we need love, because these three will remain, as it says in 1 Corinthians chapter 13. If we apply what Jesus taught in Matthew 25:1-13, I think our faith and our hope will grow, and our love will also increase. Triple threat, coming at ya from the Word of God today. Let’s check it out.

You’re listening to The Burt (Not Ernie) Show podcast, part of the Spark Network, now playing via the Edifi app. This is episode number 141.

So, let me start off by mentioning that Matthew 24, which is one chapter prior to the text I’m referencing today, in that chapter Jesus was sharing about the future. He spoke on the last days, mentioned the book of Daniel, and His return, what we often refer to as His Second Coming. And at the close of chapter 24, the Lord explained pretty clearly what His servants, faithful servants as He put it, ought to be like. A faithful, sensible servant is one the master can give the responsibility of managing his other household servants and feeding them. If he returns and finds that the servants, his servants, not those who serve themselves but those who serve the master, if he finds they’ve done a good job, there will be a reward. But if they have not done what the master finds to be a good job (so, it doesn’t say to do what you or I as His servants consider to be a good job, but to do what He considers a good job…) he will return unannounced and unexpected, and he will cut the servant to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites. In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

 

See Matthew 24, verses 45-51 if you’d like to read it for yourself. It’s brutal in its honesty, but isn’t that what a good, loving God does? Tells the truth, in its brutal entirety, to those He loves so that they can know exactly what He expects and what the end results will be, for obedience or disobedience? Yeah, it can be hard to read text like this, but it’s a loving reminder of the absolute truth given to us by a loving God who does not want to catch us unawares. 

 

That is the text that comes just prior to the Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids, or the Ten Virgins (depending on which translation you are reading from). 

 

In the NLT, it says:

 

Then the Kingdom of Heaven will be like ten bridesmaids who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. The five who were foolish didn’t take enough olive oil for their lamps, but the other five were wise enough to take along extra oil. When the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and fell asleep. At midnight they were roused by the shout, “Look, the bridegroom is coming! Come out and meet him!” All the bridesmaids got up and prepared their lamps. Then the five foolish ones asked the others, “Please give us some of your oil because our lamps are going out.” But the others replied, “We don’t have enough for all of us. Go to a shop and buy some for yourselves.” But while they were gone to buy oil, the bridegroom came. Then those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was locked. Later, when the other five bridesmaids returned, they stood outside, calling, “Lord! Lord! Open the door for us!” But he called back, “Believe me, I don’t know you!” So you, too, must keep watch! For you do not know the day or hour of My return.

 

Reading this directly on the heels of Jesus speaking about the master and the servants and the rewards and punishments that will come at that time opens our eyes to how seriously Jesus wanted the listeners to take this, and us as the readers of the Bible to take it. 

 

We should take it seriously because it is serious.

And today is the day to step up and get real about the fact that Jesus said a lot, quite a lot, about His return. If He talked about it a lot, we should pay attention to it a lot. 

 

Think of it this way: the entire book of Revelation, which is by the way the only book in the Bible that promises a blessing to the reader so that’s pretty substantial, but the entire book of Revelation is 22 chapters of loads of prophecy. It’s a book about Jesus, right? Don’t let the scary parts scare you - because Jesus said in regard to the last days, end times things, not to be afraid. Luke 21, He says that exact thing. When you see these things happening, don’t be fearful. So I really hope you and I can trust Him so much that we will do as He said, and choose not to give way to fear. And it is a choice. If Jesus said not to be afraid, we don’t HAVE to be fearful. 

 

In the parable I just read, there is a depiction of a Jewish wedding. Israeli weddings paint a picture of Jesus and His return. They really do. (Share a few details here) 

Isn’t it incredible that thousands of years before He returns the Lord set up this type of wedding and it accurately portrays what His return will be like? 

The Bible is always, always pointing to one thing, to One Man, Jesus. It’s Jesus, Jesus, Jesus from start to finish. And the ten bridesmaids, who were they waiting for? The groom. Who is the groom? If we are the Bride of Christ, then Christ is the groom. 

 

We are waiting for our Groom’s arrival, and like a Jewish wedding, it will come with trumpets sounding. 

 

When the parable mentions the bridesmaids falling asleep, because the hour grew late, that’s convicting, isn’t it? These ten were not five who know the Lord and five who don’t. Nope. Not five who go to church a few times a year, the Christmas and Easter services. Nope. These would be the ones who were paying enough attention to know the groom was on His way. All of them, all ten. 

 

So let’s consider that for a moment. How are you and I doing at recognizing the signs of the times and paying attention to the current season we are in? Are we aware enough to grab our lamps and expectantly wait for what is coming? Or do we even know where we are on the Kingdom calendar? 

 

We have to start there. If we totally miss the season we are in, thinking things will go back to normal, not much is going on right now, sure there are some things happening but you know, mostly it’s all okay, still got a whole lot of time left…well, I want to say that in the spring of 2023, even a modicum of head in the sand thinking can be deceptive and dangerous. Based on this parable, like deadly dangerous. 

 

In this era of history, it is important to keep our eyes on Israel. What’s going on over there? You know, in the age of the Gentile church, when those of us who are not Jewish, have the opportunity to come to salvation through the Messiah, Jesus, we have had a long stretch where we haven’t kept our eyes on Israel. But when I read the Bible, in later days, things shift back to Israel. We want to be watching so we notice even the tiniest of shifts, and then we won’t be taken by surprise when things ramp up. You have to look, because our news sources don’t always talk about Israel. Right now, a lot is happening in Israel. Really interesting stuff, and it all lines up with the Word of God. 

 

Important to pay attention to what is happening in Israel, in Palestine, in Iran, in Syria, etc. What’s up with their government currently? Got some heavy duty protesting going on right now. Key members of government resigning. Some working to pass laws that would end up with prison time for those who share Christianity with the Jewish populace. Red heifers that are being moved to Shiloh and are about two years old now. Important stuff that has to do with what Jesus said would take place right up close to the time of His return.

 

Caveat: I know He said no man, or woman, knows the hour or the day of His return. And that is unarguably true. 

I wonder, though, if there are people who maybe reference that one verse and leave out everything else that Jesus said about knowing the signs of the times as His return draws near. He had some strong words for those who could read the sky and know the next day’s weather but had no clue about the things that matter most. What matters more to the church that bears His name than us knowing what season we are in and paying attention so we will not be caught off guard or un-ready when the Groom arrives? 

 

Okay, let’s frame this through the parable.

 

Ten bridesmaids, all started with oil in the lamp. What’s the oil? Oil is usually representative of the Holy Spirit. Like, always I guess…no need to say usually because it’s always. 

Keep your lamp filled with enough oil that if the hour grows late, like the announcement had come and the groom was on his way and he was delayed and they fell asleep in the streets out there waiting for him, so all ten were dialed in, paying attention, acted on the announcement, and none went home back to their own bed when the hour grew late and he hadn’t shown up yet. Asleep in the street while they waited - Jesus didn’t say anything about falling asleep while they waited. He is telling us it will seem like it’s taking so long, even when all the signs are there to announce His soon arrival. Are we gonna hang if it takes a long, long time? 

And how are we going to hang in there? Only if we keep oil in our lamps. In that moment, we will not have time to say, “Hang on, I need to get prayed up right quick and make sure I have not been quenching the Spirit by my lifestyle, by my neglect of time with Him in my very own everyday life, I need a sec, almost ready, gimme a moment.” Peter, James, Paul introduce themselves like this: “I, Paul…I, Peter… I, James… a slave to Jesus Christ”. If we do only what we want and just flake out on what the Lord wants us to be about, can we refer to ourselves as slaves to Christ? Jesus is not going to say, “Oh, no worries. Take your time. Go find some more oil. Let me just work around your schedule, how would that be?” That is not what will happen. Delay? No good. Keep your own personal lamp filled with oil. Anything else? That will not work, my friend.

We have to have oil ready for when the moment comes.

 

Now, don’t shoot the messenger. It’s in your Bible, too. I didn’t write it, I’m just sharing what Jesus point blank, plainly said. He told us what He wants us to know, so we need to just do what He said. 

 

The last week or so I have heard these exact words said over and over and over again by people in a myriad of different places, via email, instagram, and TikTok. These words: Get Your House In Order

 

And one man, a pastor from Ireland, shared that in conjunction with this parable. Keep oil in your lamp. Most important thing, right there. 

 

When I see or hear or read the same thing again and again, I pay attention. This isn’t random, because our God does not do random.

 

That's why we can, and should, trust Him completely. Random is not a thing in the Kingdom of Almighty God. That fact right there is enough to give us great hope. 

 

Couple that with this amazing, beautiful warning to keep oil in your lamp for this exact moment and then you will be ready when He returns for His bride, and you will go into the wedding supper of the Lamb. You don’t want to miss that, not for the world. 

 

And it’s clear, you can’t share your oil with anybody else. That’s not God’s way, so it wouldn’t be the right way. You’ve heard it said that God has no grandchildren, that’s true. It’s your relationship with Him, and none other, that keeps oil, the Holy Spirit, filled up in the lamp which is like your life. Be much with the Lord, stay filled up with the Spirit of the living God. Don’t neglect Him, take time to be with Him, carve out that time. Put some effort into it. Pay attention, like if your personal time with the Lord costs you nothing at all, what are you really paying into it? How you can you pay attention if it costs zero of you? Something to think about.

Jesus will return for His church, His bride, His people. We are not alone, orphaned, abandoned. We have hope that extends beyond the reach of death, hell, the grave, illness, lack or loss, stress, poverty, and so on. Should we not be the most hopeful, the most excited, the most looking up with anticipation kind of people in the world? Yes! If you have hope, you should be hopeful. And if you need some hope, I know where you can access it. Be much with the Lord. Therein lies all the hope, the joy, the peace, the love, the comfort, the wisdom, the grace, the favor that you need. 

 

Be much with your Lord. Because I can promise you, He wants to be much with you.

 

Next week will be a special episode for Easter, for Resurrection Sunday. Join me for that. And thanks for listening today, Lord bless you exceedingly, abundantly and fill you with hope, and fill your lamp with oil.

 

Thankful for you - see you next time.