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The topic of God's Grace is beautifully complicated. It is simply too great to fully understand while we live here in the limitations of the flesh. But giving up on understanding grace can lead to big mistakes. Maybe we believe God covers everything not matter how we live. That's not right. But neither is the other side of the spectrum, where we look at our lives as a series of works we must accomplish to eventually get the grace. This is equally as foolish. 

David Osteen and I take different angles on the topic of grace, but we are in ultimate agreement in how it motivates us to live great and faithful lives. In this interview, you get to hear our independent answers to some straight forward questions about God's grace. 

Kenny Embry hosts the Balancing the Christian Life podcast. If you enjoy this interview style, go check out his podcast. He has conducted some truly incredible interviews on needful topics. 

- How would you explain grace without using "unmerited favor"?

- Why is grace such a controversial topic?

- How would you explain grace to your 12 year old kids?

- Why is a lack of grace just as dangerous as focusing on it too much?

- How is it liberating to know you are saved by God and His grace?

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I hope you are excited for a productive and incredible 2023. This starts with a proper planning. And great planning includes evaluating the people in your life. Today's episode takes us back to one of our earliest episodes: "Your Inner Circle." We need to evaluate the people who are healthy to have close to you, because you are going to need them to build a team who can help you reach your goals. 

We also want to go back a couple of years to the idea of "Building Your Ladders." There is a tried and true strategy for using the calendar year as a 12 step program for building a ladder and reaching a new level. Take full advantage of the January fresh start and prepare for that first rung!

Lastly, in this episode, let's get some really great ideas from Simon Sinek. He did an interview recently concerning how to build a great team. There has to be support when you falter. There has to be trust and people who throw you a party when you fail (in a great way). His instruction at the end will be important in setting up the kind of support that will make 2023 fail safe, so long as God allows!

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"How do we raise faithful kids?" I have asked that many times and been asked that many times. We often answer with environmental factors. We need to raise them in a Christian home. We need to surround them with Christian people. We need to give them a daily serving of the Word of God. All of these are great. They are major factors, but they do not determine the salvation of yourself, nor your children.

There have been people with all of those aids who did not love God. And there have been people with none of those benefits who became humble servants of the King? Why is that? What is truly at play?  To help with that, I want to tell you the story of king Josiah. He had a heart like David's heart and it made ALL the difference. 

I hope this episode brings about better questions between parents and teens. I hope it helps you dig in with questions for yourself. Questions about what you believe, how you feel about God, and how must you know that God loves you. In a believing heart all things are possible. But without such a heart, no other factor will save us.

- Why is a spiritual environment so important in raising faithful kids?

- Why doesn't that always work? And why do people in the world come to Christ?

- How does the heart of a person and the choices of their heart factor in?

- Can you make someone have a tender heart? How can it be developed?

- What kind of an environment will you build if you have a tender heart for God?

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I really hope you enjoy this investigation of the Gestalt Effect. The triangle image for the episode is a practical example of how the eye fills in the details. I first came upon this while reading an excellent book on modesty. I'll share a link for that book:
Secret Keeper by Dannah Gresh

The word Gestalt simply means seeing things as a whole, as a full picture. The mind takes in pieces of information and instantly tries to fill in something common and make a judgment. Different principles dictate this almost instantaneous action. We will look at Continuation and Closure. How does this information affect the clothes we choose to wear? Are we ready to take ownership of our impressions on others? 

To move that forward, what about our speech? When we share just a word or a short message, do we understand how others hear it? A word spoken can be a full paragraph in the ear of the hearer. A moment of tone can convey a tidal wave of emotion. Let's dig in some on why minding our words is as important as our dress.

- What is the Gestalt Effect and how is it always in play?

- What is the power of an impression and how can we own that power?

- How does dress and modesty relate to the Gestalt Theory?

- How does spoken words - sarcasm and tone - carry more weight than we think it does?

- Can we take advantage of Gestalt to use a little input to make people's day a lot better?

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Israel was baptized through the Red Sea. They sang a song of victory and rejoiced in the grace of God. But... most of those celebrating that day did not make it home to the promised land. Why not? Pride. They began to feel entitled, and that caused them to turn attention from God to themselves. 

Part of our episode today will investigate the  mistakes of Israel in I Corinthians 10. How can we be less like them, more dependent on God, and beautifully humble? 

We will also list 8 things from Kevin Deyoung's book, Crazy Busy. These words, all starting with the letter P (its a Letter P day!) represent more subtle ways that pride sneaks into our lives. Having sought humility in these things, you and I will be better positioned, at the foot of God's throne, to be more useful to Him.

"A Manifestation of the Many Manifestations of Pride" (pg 35-38)
- People Pleasing
- Pats on the Back
- Performance Evaluation
- Proving Myself
- Possessions
- Prestige
- Pity
- Posting

Ooh, I see some of my own pride in that list. But what does our year look like if we know where we need to be humble? If we ask the question: "is this about me? And if it was about God and others, how different would it look?" 

May the Lord, who has blessed us in His grace and Spirit and Son, use us well and give us a life of gratitude, thankfulness, and service. 

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Crazy Busy Book

Let's turn our attention back to planning through the end of the year and preparing for an amazing 2023. Part of this is spacing out your goals to avoid being "crazy busy." That is not a compliment. Crazy busy people make unneeded sacrifices and end up not enjoying the journey nor the destination. Let's examine how to be more like Jesus. Part of that is knowing your limitations, finding humility, and being ready to be what God wants you to be.

7 Thoughts from Crazy Busy:  Calming the Crazy Man Inside (pg. 47-50)
1) I am not the Christ
2) There is Good News
3) Care is not the same as Do
4) I can always Pray Right Now
5) We have different Gifts and different Callings
6) Remember the Church
7) Jesus didn't do it all

Can you lay out a few things that represent your most crucial priority?
What matters most and can you attach actions and growth to those things?
Be prepared to have a "posteriority" list. Things that belong at the bottom.

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"Denominational" Baptism. "Church of Christ" Baptism. We come up with lots of adjectives before the word baptism that are not found in Scripture. This often leads us away from the simple truth of the Gospel. It leads to labeling, party system, and sectarianism. 

The temptation to implement our judgments on a person's baptism is strong among God's people. We want to know who baptized them. We want to know who the teacher was. What church they were in. And other factors to decide if they are like us. All of those are factors. But be careful. Anyone, anywhere, anytime, can read the Scripture and obey it, without asking your permission or using your local church's baptistry. 

We want to know: have you submitted to God in the One Baptism:
- Full Immersion in Water - John 3:23. Acts 8:35-39
- To Follow and Obey Jesus - Matthew 3:15; Mark 16:15-16; Matthew 28:18-20
- For the Forgiveness of Sins - Acts 2:38; Acts 22:16
- Uniting with Christ's Power - Romans 6:3-7
- To be Added by God to the Body - Acts 2:47
- To Begin a New Walk in Faith - Acts 2:31-47

How much did they know beyond this?
- Some say a whole bunch - Acts 2:40
- But Scripture argues differently - see Acts 8 and Acts 16

- But what about the Baptizer?
- And what about the Teacher?
- Or the Church they came from?
- How will our Church handle that?

Let's dig in - cutting through sectarian and denominational thinking and getting back to the Word and the simple connection between and Individual - the Gospel - and God. 

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We are getting down to the last couple of months in 2022.  This is an outstanding time to evaluate the year and start working on plans for 2023. I don't like waking up in January jumping in to something new. I want to work on it, plan it, and get it set up now... so the New Year starts with excitement and structure. 

A fun way to get into this way of thinking is The Bucket List. So let's spend some time on that. But there is a really cool, perhaps even better, list to examine: the reverse bucket list. What if we look backwards to assess where our attention should go in the future? 

- Are you ready to do some work now to make 2023 the best year of your life?

- What is a Bucket List and why are they so fun to make?

- But what are some drawbacks of putting our joy and hope in a list like that?

- What is a Reverse Bucket List and how does it give us deeper perspective?

- How can you plan 2023 with reachable goals that deepen things you know you love?

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"Where's the beef? - Do you remember the old Wendy's commercials from the '80's? An older lady sees a tiny patty and asks where is the rest of it!? Sometimes people say that about grace, when referencing the preaching, teaching and Christianity they grew up with.

But maybe that isn't a fair judgment. Grace can be preached without mentioning the word. In fact, the substance of grace is not found in a word, but in a story: the story of Jesus. Let's explore the depth of the nature of grace and how we can know it well and be filled with it!

To be sure, some shied away from focusing on grace and Jesus - for whatever reason much more emphasis was put on actions, authority and patterns. Those things are really important, but they mean nothing without the story of Jesus and the power of His mercy in your heart and life. Let's explore that today!

- Were you taught grace where you worshipped growing up?

- Does that mean mentioned the word, or is it more about the biblical idea?

- How does the story of Jesus represent the deliverance of God's grace upon this earth?

- What happens in my heart and life when I am connected to Jesus every single day?

- Will others see grace when they encounter you? And how do you make that happen?

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Today is wedding day for some great friends of ours: Beau Barnes and Hannah Holt. I have been asked to officiate and I'm up here at the building practicing! Right in the middle I thought - Hey I want to share this with all my friends! So, here's my wedding sermon. 

First and foremost, we need much more optimism! God's picture of marriage is very good, a great reward and the answer for loneliness! If this isn't your marriage - all I can say is that it was designed to be and has the potential in it somewhere. 

But we need to talk about some tips and strategies. Three things will make a huge difference and we talk about them today: all in allegiance to God's right to govern your home, all in commitment to oneness from now until the end of your life, and three really beautiful words: love, love, and love. 

- What do you remember about your wedding day?

- Do you remember the optimism for the future that filled the room?

- How does commitment to God's government of your marriage a powerful start?

- What happens when we have no option but to get through trouble together as one?

- Have you looked at love in three, distinct and important categories?