Posts Tagged ‘opposition’

Surviving Our Vetting Process

Saturday, January 3rd, 2009

Recorded November 23, 2008. Richard looks at Ephesians 5 beginning with verse 15. The U.S. recently finished a major election to recording this episode. Many politicians experienced a vetting process.  In other words their history, personal life, business dealings, moral conduct–every aspect of their lives were under microscopic examination.

As Christians, we too go through a vetting process. Therefore we need to be careful how we live. As Richard puts it, use your God given head. God knows all our secrets. He knows our thoughts. He remembers all of our actions. Nonchristians frequently delight in finding discrepancies in our faith. We can go through our vetting process on our own, or we can choose to use God’s wisdom.

Every day we have opportunities to serve our God. Do we make the most of every opportunity? Churches grow when their members do that. As a community of faith we need to seize the moment.

Richard reminds us the days are evil. Both in Paul’s day and in our time we face unspeakable evil. The underpinning of the American family is crumbling. TV glorifies sex, cheating, stealing and ungodly character. Being a Christian is at best very unpopular both today and in Paul’s day.

Therefore we must not be foolish. We need to understand and do the Lord’s will. Our quiet times provide God the opportunity to talk to us. As we learn to act on what Paul shows us in Ephesians 5, we come through our personal vetting process as people who are worthy of the title God’s faithful children.

You can hear what Richard has to say about Ephesians 5, and subscribe to From Richard’s Heart by visiting our podcast page.

Against all odds

Saturday, December 6th, 2008

Recorded on November 9, 2008. Look at Matthew 5:11. “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.” Satan opposes people who are effective for God. Remember Corrie Ten boon? She suffered tremendously because of the Gospel. Satan opposed her because she was a powerful agent for God.

Joshua against all odds overcame giant a obstacle between Israel and Jericho and saw the great wall fall. Noah built a great ship and waited for the rain. Against all odds, Noah’s faith saved him.

Martin Luther King had a dream. Few people believed Dr. King’s dream would ever happen. Yet against all odds our next president will be an African-american. We see Vets returning from combat minus legs and arms, and against all odds many of them rebuild their lives and become living examples for the rest of us.

Against all odds Barack Obama will be our next president. As Christians, we know we are to pray for those in authority. Richard reminds us Barack Obama will be my president so I will pray for him.

At home what have we done? We need to be busy showing, telling, and demonstrating the gospel against all odds. If we do nothing for God, where is our faith?

You can listen to this episode and subscribe to this podcast by visiting “From Richard’s Heart.”