Graceful Insights with Dr. Kathy Wood

This is our final podcast on “losing heart”. We will start out by summing up what we have seen so far about what causes a loss of heart and what feelings go along with the loss of heart. How does a person avoid losing heart – how can a person guard against this? And, how can a person find his heart again? And finally, how you can help people who seem to be losing heart – what can you do for them?

Today we will look at some additional verses on losing heart and some examples of people in the Bible who lost heart. What situations were those people facing? How did God help them through those times when all they really wanted to do was give up? 

In our last podcast, we looked at several verses dealing with loss of heart and a few of the causes of this condition. God encourages us to look at our circumstances from His point of view and not to respond to those circumstances like the world would. God has a different perspective – that is not surprising! Now we will take a look at Hebrews chapter 12 and see what God says about endurance and where our eyes need to be fixed and even the value of hard times that might cause us to lose heart.

Losing heart – what exactly does this mean? Almost everyone goes through loss of heart at one time or another. It can be caused by a variety of things like extreme grief or situations that are so hard that we do not know how to get out of them or heavy disappointments, just to name a few. The Bible actually has a lot to say about losing heart – what causes it and how to recover from it. In this podcast we will look at some warnings attached to losing heart.

This is our final podcast on “discipleship”. Today we’ll take a look at some additional things that Jesus said about following Him. And we will look at some questions – Is becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ worth it? And will it be easy to be a disciple? And, if following Jesus is difficult at times, is there any help for us!? Let’s take a look at the answers to these questions.

In our last podcast, we looked at the challenge that Jesus gave to the large crowds of people listening to Him. He challenged them to follow Him. And he told them what that meant as He discussed preferring Christ over all other people, denying ourselves, taking up our crosses daily… Following Christ requires a total commitment of your life to that end. He also talked about the narrow gate and the wide gate – both of them life choices that people make as they seek eternal life. In this podcast, we will take a look at these “gates” and the choices people make as well as why they make those choices.

Did you know that the word “Christian” only occurs 3 times in the New Testament of the Bible? The word “disciple” appears much more frequently and, in fact, is the word that Jesus used for those who believed in Him. So what IS a disciple? And perhaps more importantly, are YOU a disciple? In today’s podcast, we’ll take a look at those questions.

Is it possible to control what we say? God says that the tongue is untamable! Well, that is discouraging! And He says that what you say reveals the condition of your heart. So what are we to do? And what if we decide to do nothing and just keep grumbling?

Life has a way of not going how we expect it to go. People disappoint us and situations trip us up. Before we know it, we find ourselves complaining about our lot in life. So what? Doesn’t everyone have the right to complain sometimes? The Israelites certainly thought so as they wandered around in the wilderness for 40 years. But grumbling and complaining did not turn out well for them…

If our words are so powerful – if, as God says, ‘life and death are in the power of the tongue’ – then what can we do to make sure that our tongues are a source of life to other people? God also says that the tongue is impossible to tame. Well then, what are we to do?! God has the solution.