Pastor Joe Sugrue - Grace and Truth Podcast

Tuesday November 17, 2020

God is not hiding from us, nor is He making it difficult to see Him the way we should. There is only one way, and in a sea of counterfeits, we have to discover that way and learn all we can about it.

"That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly." [Thomas Paine]

God is going to train you to be like His Son, no matter what you ask for, but you have to be like His Son to properly use and enjoy any gift. If we're not reaching for it and asking for it, or even asking for the clarity to find our way like Pilgrim in John Bunyan's allegory, then that says something about our desire for it.

As God transforms us into the children capable of using the things we ask for, we must keep asking so that we know He is molding us...

for full notes: https://www.cgtruth.org/index.php?proc=msg&sf=vw&tid=2336

Sunday November 15th

If we have to keep looking every day and notice the seeds that God is sending our way, designed to plant spiritual vitality and further understanding in us, then we have to be sober and alert every day.

The seed in the parable of the sower is the word of God, Luk 8:11.

Luk 8:11-15

"Now the parable is this: the seed is the word of God. 12 And those beside the road are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their heart, so that they may not believe and be saved. 13 And those on the rocky soil are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no firm root; they believe for a while, and in time of temptation fall away. 14 And the seed which fell among the thorns, these are the ones who have...

for full notes: https://www.cgtruth.org/index.php?proc=msg&sf=vw&tid=2335

Thursday November 12, 2020

Reminding us where we are:

The Holy Spirit intercedes for us in prayer because of our weakness, not knowing how to pray. Keep praying. God is transforming us and we need to always know He is working.

Remember that God wants most of all to give us Himself. All things and events and circumstances in life are being used by the Father to do just that.

The superficial self, the old self, is not the true self. It is just a mask that we must learn to take off and throw away.

C.S. Lewis: "He wants you to know Him; wants to give you Himself. And He and you are two things of such a kind that if you really get into any kind of touch with Him you will, in fact, be humble - delightedly humble, feeling the infinite relief of...

for full notes: https://www.cgtruth.org/index.php?proc=msg&sf=vw&tid=2334

Wednesday November 11, 2020

Veterans Day. The following is a blog published today by Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie.

I'm Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie.

On Veterans Day in 1988, Ronald Reagan said ... "We remember those who were called upon to give all a person can give, and we remember those who were prepared to make that sacrifice if it were demanded of them in the line of duty. . . Most of all, we remember the devotion and gallantry with which all of them ennobled their nation as they became champions of a noble cause."

Each Veterans Day is a remembrance set aside to honor those who have defended our country in peace and war.

On November 11th, we pause to reflect on American Veterans, men and women who have served and sacrificed while wearing the uniforms of the Nation-ordinary...

for full notes: https://www.cgtruth.org/index.php?proc=msg&sf=vw&tid=2333

Tuesday, November 10, 2020

Without the choice to do good and bad, there can be no love. Love has to choose. God chose to become a Man and die for our sins, taking what we deserved upon Himself though He was innocent. We choose to believe in Him and we choose to love Him and give into His will. Either we bow our knee and say, "Father, Your will, not mine," or else if we do not, God will say to us, "Your will and not Mine."

Love is the craving in the human heart to belong in the sacredness of trust and a relationship. Daily prayer helped by the Holy Spirit is an extension of that love of God.

Love is clearly seen when a child of God prays to God his Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit intercede. It is almost as if the Trinity is wrapping the child in love and working tirelessly to give to...

for full notes: https://www.cgtruth.org/index.php?proc=msg&sf=vw&tid=2332

Wednesday November 11,2020

Memorial for Lisa...

for full notes: https://www.cgtruth.org/index.php?proc=msg&sf=vw&tid=2331

Sunday November 8,2020

There is an issue that can prevent us from becoming Christlike, which in another wording would mean that we have become whole or complete in character, and that is that we really don't want it, despite the fact that we say that we do.

"Are you willing to be made whole?" - Are you willing to be fitted for the highest and purest life? Do we ask for it, while secretly asking "not yet."?

Joh 5:1-6

After these things there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 2 Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porticoes. 3 In these lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered, [waiting for the moving of the waters; 4 for an angel of the Lord went down...

for full notes: https://www.cgtruth.org/index.php?proc=msg&sf=vw&tid=2330

Thursday November 5, 2020

To be the type of people we have been called to be, it is imperative that we know that we are hearing the truth from the scripture, since only the truth will free us from the bondage of what we are not to be what we are.

Joh 7:14-18

But when it was now the midst of the feast Jesus went up into the temple, and began to teach. 15 The Jews therefore were marveling, saying, "How has this man become learned, having never been educated?" 16 Jesus therefore answered them, and said, "My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me. 17 "If any man is willing to do His will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God, or whether I speak from Myself [of His own making]. 18 "He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who is seeking the glory of the One who sent Him, He is true, and there is no...

for full notes: https://www.cgtruth.org/index.php?proc=msg&sf=vw&tid=2329

Wednesday November 4, 2020

The ministry of the Holy Spirit in prayer, like everything God does for us, is concerned with making us people of a certain type.

In Christianity, we are all to be of the greatest type of humanity: the new humanity which is the life of Christ.

If God gives us all the things we want, makes our life comfortable and leisurely, and we don't possess the type of inner heart where the Christ resides at home, we will live impoverished, contemptible lives.

The life is the life of Christ. There is nothing in all of the history of the billions of men that is like the death of a Galilean as a Jewish state criminal and the confession that depicts this executed man as a preexistent divine figure who becomes a man and humbles Himself to a slave's death. Yet,...

for full notes: https://www.cgtruth.org/index.php?proc=msg&sf=vw&tid=2328

November 1, 2020

In all city-states, nations, or empires that began as democratic, over time leisure and decadence as well as centralization and concentration of wealth in the hands of the elite, and simultaneous loss of the middle class led to a loss of the liberties they set out to ensure and protect. Due to the loss of equality of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and the loss of the proper mindset needed for a democratic, constitutional republic, unproductive citizens multiply and never decrease in numbers, family enterprises give way to corporate and governmental entities; public subsidy are offered to the landless and jobless detritus. Rural becomes urban, popular culture overwhelms all levels of society. Even language is refashioned to convince that work is drudgery, simplicity boredom, and charity entitlement, words themselves reinvented so that capital accumulation might become...

for full notes: https://www.cgtruth.org/index.php?proc=msg&sf=vw&tid=2327