Hardwired with Jeff Wickwire

With today’s technology, you have no shortage of pastors and teachers to listen to! And with that variety of voices comes a wide spectrum of ideas. Pastor Jeff teaches you today that, unfortunately, there are many pastors out there who teach more like motivational speakers than like messengers of God. Those weak pastors will produce weak fruit, people who aren’t truly living in the way of Jesus. If you want to grow in your faith, find a pastor that will teach straight from God’s Word.

When you are feeding an infant, you have to give them soft food that they don’t have to chew. But as they get older, they need to be able to eat solid food, so that they can grow strong and healthy. Well, Pastor Jeff teaches you today that there are many Christians today who are stuck in that infant stage. They worship Jesus but don’t believe that God’s Word is absolute truth. A follower of Jesus needs to believe in the absolute truth of God’s Word, because otherwise their witness will be empty and meaningless.

If your phone or your computer starts to run slowly after a few years, one step you can try to fix the issue is to do a factory reset! By restoring your device to the way it was when it was brand new, you can clean out some of the junk files that have built up over time. In today’s message, Pastor Jeff teaches you that God wants to reset your mind because renewing your mind will make it easier for you to follow God’s will for your life instead of constantly giving in to your own desires.

Daniel and his friends didn’t just have to say “no” to Babylonian influence once. Instead, they had to say “no” every day, even multiple times a day! Every meal with indulgent food, every lesson taught from a Babylonian perspective, every conversation with a fellow student or a teacher was an opportunity for the young Israelite men to give in. But Pastor Jeff teaches you today that as you grow stronger in your faith in Jesus, it starts to become easier to say “no” to the things of this world.

There are some trees that, as they get older, will grow massive root systems that anchor them into the ground. They can get to the point where not even a tornado can rip them out! Well, in today’s message, Pastor Jeff is going to teach you that in order to withstand the pressures to conform to this world, you’re going to need to place deep roots in God’s Word! When you know what God wants for your life, inside and out, you will be able to resist the temptations of earthly pleasures that surround you every day.

It’s pretty easy to find out who your real friends are when you begin to go through difficult times. If someone in your family is suffering from an illness, who in your circle is checking in on you? If you’re going through financial hardship, who’s the friend calling you and inviting you to fellowship together? Pastor Jeff teaches you today that the godly friends that you gain are worth their weight in gold. God can use them to help guide you back towards the path of righteousness when you fall astray.

Have you ever met someone who was a fan of two rival sports teams? Maybe they pick a side when they play each other, but they’ll cheer for each team individually when they’re playing other opponents. But you can’t do that when it comes to the Kingdom of God. You can’t sit on the fence. Pastor Jeff teaches that if you don’t serve God, you are His enemy. The world will eventually be destroyed and remade in God’s perfect vision. What side will you be on when that happens?

People in this world are just looking for a place to belong. They find kinship in culture, in relationships, and even in church. But humans are bound to let other humans down, because we’re inherently broken and imperfect. Pastor Jeff reminds us today that only God can give us an identity that will withstand the world’s attacks, because it’s built not in what we do, but it’s based on who we serve! Our identity in God is unchanging because He is unchanging, and He has adopted us as His own.

Everyone has good and bad experiences in this life. That’s just part of being human. You can probably name two or three instances in your childhood that shaped you into the person you are today, whether they had a positive or a negative effect on you in the long run. But Pastor Jeff teaches you today that in order to live the life that God has for you, you need to let go of other people’s opinions of you. The only person whose opinion truly matters is the one who formed you in your mother’s womb.

There are many people out there today who think that because they call themselves Christians, and attend a church service once every few months, that they are saved from their sin. But Pastor Jeff warns you today that following Jesus isn’t a one-and-done deal. It requires you to surrender control of your life, and to submit yourself to a different way of living. Someone who claims Jesus but doesn’t submit to the transforming work of the Holy Spirit isn’t following Jesus, they are following their own interests.