Firm Foundation Focus

In this Unfolded episode I return to something we opened up in Session 5, and I tell the story of being handed a book back in 2022 that dismantled my entire inner world, because it exposed just how self centred and me focused my Christianity had been, even while I was using all the right language and doing all the right things. Reading one chapter a day, walking the streets of a Polish city, I found myself face to face with a gospel that self could never carry, and with the realisation that my zeal, my sacrifice, my prayer life, and even my move to another nation had all been sourced by me, and not by Christ as life.

As that centre was exposed, line by line, I began to see from Their viewpoint what They have always wanted, and I realised I had missed Him, missed the tree of life, and missed the glory by living from a gospel that was still about what I got out of it. In this episode I open up Ephesians 1 and sit with a very familiar passage, because alongside our inheritance in Christ there is another inheritance altogether, the Father’s inheritance in the saints, and when that begins to open up it changes how we see the Cross, discipleship, and what the gospel has always been moving toward.

I read Ephesians 1:3–23 from the ESV, and then I leave you with words from DeVern Fromke’s Ultimate Intention, chapter 25, and I simply let them speak for themselves.Participant Guide

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CghKe2NP9ZMslL3fq12ijjq6DhciUFuh?usp=sharing

About Alex

Alex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.

Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

In today’s session the focus turns fully toward the Father, as we trace the gospel back to where it truly begins, with His Eternal Purpose before Adam, before the fall, and before human need. As the story is seen from Their perspective, the Cross comes into view as far more than a solution for our sins, because it addresses the source of life inherited in Adam and brings independence to its end, making oneness with the Father possible.

We explore the difference between the modern cross and the old rugged cross, and we begin to see why so much of Christianity has remained centred on my blessing, my breakthrough, and my deliverance. Drawing from Romans 6, alongside searching insights from DeVern Fromke and A.W. Tozer, this session opens up the Father’s longing to receive sons who live unto Him, whose centre has changed, and whose life flows from Christ rather than from self.

Participant Guide

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CghKe2NP9ZMslL3fq12ijjq6DhciUFuh?usp=sharing

About Alex

Alex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.

Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

In this fourth Thursday Unfolded episode, I come back to a question many of us have lived with for years: if the old man really is dead and we truly are the new man in Christ, then why does it still feel like there is such a war going on inside of us, and why do thoughts and impulses still show up that feel anything but new. Drawing from what we’ve already opened up together in previous sessions, I return to Paul’s teaching in Romans to remind us that sin is not just behaviour, but a power, and that in Romans 5 through 8 Paul consistently speaks of sin as a noun, something active and present, rather than just something we do.

As the conversation unfolds, we take a simple look at Romans 7 to see who the characters actually are in this passage, where Paul separates the new man who truly wants God from the power of sin that still operates in the body, speaking in familiar language and masquerading as the old man who is already gone. Rather than presenting an identity crisis or an endless inner tug of war, Romans 7 exposes how this power works, where it works, and why recognising it brings freedom. This episode is about seeing clearly what is happening, so we stop fighting the wrong battle and begin resting in the life we already have in Christ.

Participant Guide

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CghKe2NP9ZMslL3fq12ijjq6DhciUFuh?usp=sharing

About Alex

Alex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.

Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

I need the blood for forgiveness, what I have I have done, but I need the Cross to deliver me from who I am!

In today’s session we open up the part of the gospel many of us were never shown, where the blood of Jesus deals with everything we have done, yet the Cross deals with the Sinner in Adam, the old man we inherited. This is where the freedom we have longed for begins to take shape, because Jesus didn’t just die for us as our Substitute, He died as us in inclusive death, bringing the Adam life to its end and revealing the new man born of the Father.

We walk through Romans 6, Galatians 2:20, and Ephesians 1, and we begin to see what the Father has always desired: sons who carry His life, His nature and His spirit. This session will help you understand why trying harder never worked, and why the Cross is the Father’s only answer to who we were in Adam.

Participant Guide

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CghKe2NP9ZMslL3fq12ijjq6DhciUFuh?usp=sharing

About Alex

Alex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.

Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

In this third Thursday Unfolded episode, I come back to something I only mentioned briefly at the end of Session 3, and that is confession and communion. For many of us, communion has become a quiet moment at the end of a service, centred around personal introspection and whether we feel clean enough or confessed-up enough to take part. But when we look again at the Passover, and at what Jesus was actually doing with His disciples the night before He was betrayed, a very different picture begins to emerge, because this was a covenant meal shared around a table, not a private religious act managed by individual conscience.

In this episode, I walk through 1 Corinthians 11 to look at what Paul was really addressing in Corinth, and why his correction had nothing to do with unconfessed sin and everything to do with a divided body gathering around a shared meal. As communion is seen again as the covenant meal of the new covenant, the questions start to surface: how did the table get separated from the people, how did a family meal become a moment of fear and self-checking, and what does the way we take communion today actually say about how we see one another as the Body of Christ?

You can find Nancy’s podcasts here by going to her website: https://nancymccready.com/podcast/

‘Toxic Love’ by Malcolm Smith

https://amzn.eu/d/cheJyZC

Participant Guide

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CghKe2NP9ZMslL3fq12ijjq6DhciUFuh?usp=sharing

About Alex

Alex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.

Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

In this third session of Firm Foundation Lite, we turn to what God Himself did in response to what was exposed through Adam. Having seen that the human problem runs deeper than behaviour, and that sin shows up both in what we do and in the power that shaped life in Adam, this session moves directly to the blood of Jesus and the purpose it was given to fulfil. The focus stays firmly on God’s action, showing where forgiveness truly belongs and why forgiveness rests fully on what He has already accomplished, rather than on anything we manage, maintain, or revisit.

As the session unfolds, we see that the blood was first for God, meeting His righteous requirement and answering the accuser, and only then experienced by us. From there, confession and communion are returned to their original biblical meaning, exposing how they have often been reshaped into inward, self-referencing practices. This session brings definition to what the blood has dealt with, and places clear boundaries around its purpose, opening the way for what follows as we move from sins to God’s complete answer for who we were in Adam.

Participant Guide

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CghKe2NP9ZMslL3fq12ijjq6DhciUFuh?usp=sharing

About Alex

Alex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.

Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

In this second Thursday Unfolded episode, I come back to one word from Session 2 that has stayed with me all week, and that word is source. Because from the very beginning, the question in the garden was always about where life would come from, and who we would be joined to. Two trees stood before humanity, representing two sources, two life systems, and two outcomes, and that same question still stands before us today as believers.

In this episode, I share some very personal processing, including how God used Toxic Love by Malcolm Smith to expose just how much of my life and relationships were still being lived from the wrong source. What became clear is that fruit always reveals source, and it is entirely possible to believe all the right things and still live from independence, separation, and counterfeit love. This conversation is about recognising where life is really coming from, and what changes when Jesus truly becomes the only source of life.

'Toxic Love’ by Malcolm Smith

https://amzn.eu/d/cheJyZC

About Alex

Alex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.

Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

In this second session of Firm Foundation Lite, we turn our attention to what actually went wrong when humanity entered the story. Rather than beginning with behaviour, mistakes, or moral failure, this session takes us deeper, exposing the inherited condition Scripture presents — a change of source that took place in Adam, where separation from God became the governing reality of human life. As the teaching unfolds, we see why the human problem cannot be reduced to what we do, and why forgiveness alone, while essential, was never designed to address the full depth of what happened to man. The issue is revealed as sin, not merely sins — a power shaping identity, direction, and the way life is lived.

Session 2 unpacks the difference between sins and sin, showing why behaviour-focused Christianity repeatedly fails to bring lasting change, and why humanity cannot fix what it has inherited. By revisiting human design — spirit, soul, and body — we see what died in Adam, why the soul assumed control, and how life became organised around independence rather than shared life with God. This session brings clarity to why everything went wrong, and prepares the ground for the gospel’s true answer, as we move next into how the Father dealt fully and decisively with both problems through Christ.

Participant Guide

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CghKe2NP9ZMslL3fq12ijjq6DhciUFuh?usp=sharing

Feature Episode: ‘Do we have a weak gospel?’

Listen on Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/71E4GC4a7C193RxRrIJglD?si=Kvq6ilZDRlChbEF5hxS21Q

Listen on Youtube here: 

https://youtu.be/EJQhiIIqRks

About Alex

Alex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.

Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

In this first Unfolded episode, I come back to one of the images from Session 1 the picture of a rocket missing the moon because it began just one degree out and talk it through more personally, sharing how that illustration has stayed with me.

Using that image, I talk about the phrase “I’m a sinner saved,” something I sang for years, and how believing statements like this keep us wildly off course, because the Father never calls us this, because you can’t be a sinner and a son it’s impossible! This episode flows directly out of Monday’s session, and the Participant Guide for Session 1 is available alongside this episode.

Participant Guide

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CghKe2NP9ZMslL3fq12ijjq6DhciUFuh?usp=sharing

Feature Episode: ‘Do we have a weak gospel?’

Listen on Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/71E4GC4a7C193RxRrIJglD?si=Kvq6ilZDRlChbEF5hxS21Q

Listen on Youtube here: 

https://youtu.be/EJQhiIIqRks

About Alex

Alex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.

Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

In this opening session of Firm Foundation Lite, we begin with the Father’s Eternal Purpose — not with sin, failure, or human need, but with what was in the heart of the Father before creation itself. This session establishes why starting points determine everything, and why a man-centred beginning inevitably reshapes the gospel into something it was never meant to be. As the teaching states plainly, “IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN HIS STORY; FOR TOO LONG, IT HAS BEEN MAN’S STORY.” From this vantage point, the gospel is no longer framed around what went wrong, but around what the Father always desired — sons who live in and from the Son.

Session 1 exposes how beginning with man produces a gospel centred on behaviour, effort, and improvement, and instead reorients us to seeing everything from Their perspective. We are reminded that “We do not fit Him into our lives – we fit into His life, His purposes, His plan,” and we are introduced to the shared desires of the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit — a family of sons, oneness in Christ, and a permanent dwelling place in a people. This opening session lays the foundation for the six weeks that follow, restoring the gospel to a God-centred starting point that reshapes how we understand salvation, discipleship, and life in Christ.

Participant Guide

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CghKe2NP9ZMslL3fq12ijjq6DhciUFuh?usp=sharing

Feature Episode: ‘Do we have a weak gospel?’

https://open.spotify.com/episode/71E4GC4a7C193RxRrIJglD?si=Kvq6ilZDRlChbEF5hxS21Q

https://youtu.be/EJQhiIIqRks

About Alex

Alex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.

Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk