Podcast Seminary

Little is more important in life than making good choices.

And daily we find ourselves making dozens and dozens of choices. In fact, a recent study by Cornell University reported that the average person in the United States makes 227 choices daily-- just involving issues related to food (Wansink and Sobal, 2007)! Some estimates are that we make, through big and small choices, up to 35000 choices daily.

Wow!

Whatever the number, we make a lot of choices. And our choices should be good ones.

In this important episode, Podcast Seminary Dean, Dr. Freddy Cardoza, helps you build a decision-making model based on scripture. He names and explores three categories informed by God's Word, then explains what each is, followed by examples of each, and exactly what believers should do in making decisions in each category.

Prepare to learn about:

1) Matters of Conviction

2) Matters of Conscience

3) Matters of Choice

Thanks for listening to Podcast Seminary. Please share us with others!

My Story Feature: How Podcast Seminary Helps People Grow in Their Faith and Relationship with God

Ron's Salvation Story

I was born in San Diego, and grew up as an only child in a Christian home. I attended private Christian school. My family attended a Baptist church. At 13 years of age, I prayed the 'sinner's prayer' one day in church, but I did not tell anyone. I guess that I wasn't ready yet to make him the Lord of my life, and I was fearful of what the neighborhood kids would say about me. Maybe they would laugh at me, make fun of me, or call me a Jesus freak After all, the idea that Jesus died and came back to life seemed very unlikely to me. How could I possibly defend this crazy sounding story? If it was true, I wanted to believe, but I just didn't know how, and I was too afraid to ask.

For 27 years, I walked through life believing that there might be a God, but was unsure. I believed that I was a pretty good person and deserved to go to heaven if there was one. However, my belief had no basis other than I had heard this for a number of other people and it seemed logical to me. Also, I was told by a close friend in college that there are a lot of religions, as well as, ways to heaven. And, in addition, religions just try to explain what we do not know.

At nearly 40 years old, I was in the best physical shape of my life, and everything seemed great. However, starting with my 40th birthday, I began to experience pain in a number of areas of my life. First, I became very aware that my marriage relationship was not in a good place. Soon to follow, my athletic triathlete body started to hurt from age and injury. I surrendered. I let go. No longer did I believe that I was in control. I began to work on myself. I began searching for answers. Thankfully, God had put many people in my path that would help me find a life of significance and purpose.

During that same year, a friend put his hand on my shoulder in the parking lot of a hospital, and prayed for God to make himself known to me in a way that I could understand. Eleven days later, the prayer was answered when God revealed himself in a powerful way to me. It was on that day of September 15, 2011, that God became real to me.

I have been a believer now for almost 6 years, and it is time for me to work at going deeper. I want to be able to grow my faith and take it to a greater depth. More specifically, I need discipleship help in the area of leadership. I am a father to three children and I desperately want them to know God. And, I want to be a better father to them. Also, there is a new believer at church that is asking me to meet with him weekly. I want to know how to disciple him in his new found faith.

I have lead a couple of small groups, and both times they have dissolved after two or three years. If I was better at discipleship, I believe that those small groups might have remained intact and still be thriving to this day. It is my hope that Podcast Seminary can help me to meet my spiritual growth needs, and as a result, I can become a more effective discipler and follower of Christ.

Human behavior confounds us-- and even the scientific community. This is because of fundamental confusion about the nature of humanity.

Because human nature is misunderstood, the reasons for behavioral problems (habits, behaviors, addictions, issues, dysfunction, etc.) are also misunderstood-- simply because they are related and one follows the other.

In this instructive podcast, Podcast Seminary Dean, Dr. Freddy Cardoza (Ph.D., Leadership) will use his 20 years of experience as a pastor and 22 years as an academic professor at the graduate and post-graduate level to explore this vital topic.

Series Introduction:

Why You Behave the Way You Do is a part of a multi-part series entitled "How to Have a Clear Conscience."

At our Podcast Seminary blog/podcast/video you will gain different content on various topics related to these themes. Enjoy 4 related podcasts, 4 blog posts, and 8 video blogs, in addition to a brand-new 4-part (3 hours total) audio course available at www.podcastseminary.deals.

My Story Feature: How Podcast Seminary Helps People Grow in Their Faith and Relationship with God

Ron's Salvation Story

I was born in San Diego, and grew up as an only child in a Christian home. I attended private Christian school. My family attended a Baptist church. At 13 years of age, I prayed the 'sinner's prayer' one day in church, but I did not tell anyone. I guess that I wasn't ready yet to make him the Lord of my life, and I was fearful of what the neighborhood kids would say about me. Maybe they would laugh at me, make fun of me, or call me a Jesus freak After all, the idea that Jesus died and came back to life seemed very unlikely to me. How could I possibly defend this crazy sounding story? If it was true, I wanted to believe, but I just didn't know how, and I was too afraid to ask.

For 27 years, I walked through life believing that there might be a God, but was unsure. I believed that I was a pretty good person and deserved to go to heaven if there was one. However, my belief had no basis other than I had heard this for a number of other people and it seemed logical to me. Also, I was told by a close friend in college that there are a lot of religions, as well as, ways to heaven. And, in addition, religions just try to explain what we do not know.

At nearly 40 years old, I was in the best physical shape of my life, and everything seemed great. However, starting with my 40th birthday, I began to experience pain in a number of areas of my life. First, I became very aware that my marriage relationship was not in a good place. Soon to follow, my athletic triathlete body started to hurt from age and injury. I surrendered. I let go. No longer did I believe that I was in control. I began to work on myself. I began searching for answers. Thankfully, God had put many people in my path that would help me find a life of significance and purpose.

During that same year, a friend put his hand on my shoulder in the parking lot of a hospital, and prayed for God to make himself known to me in a way that I could understand. Eleven days later, the prayer was answered when God revealed himself in a powerful way to me. It was on that day of September 15, 2011, that God became real to me.

I have been a believer now for almost 6 years, and it is time for me to work at going deeper. I want to be able to grow my faith and take it to a greater depth. More specifically, I need discipleship help in the area of leadership. I am a father to three children and I desperately want them to know God. And, I want to be a better father to them. Also, there is a new believer at church that is asking me to meet with him weekly. I want to know how to disciple him in his new found faith.

I have lead a couple of small groups, and both times they have dissolved after two or three years. If I was better at discipleship, I believe that those small groups might have remained intact and still be thriving to this day. It is my hope that Podcast Seminary can help me to meet my spiritual growth needs, and as a result, I can become a more effective discipler and follower of Christ.

John of the Cross was a friar who was an important faith leader in the 1500s, following the Protestant Reformation. He was known for his deep insight into the human psyche and his ability to perceive the condition of the soul.

In this amazing work, the Dark Night of the Soul, John got a glimpse into the depths of the human condition. He explored and explained the innerworkings of the spirit when a person feels far from God and enters a time where God becomes silent, allowing us to feel abandoned-- though He is there.

St. John, nearly 500 years after his death, remains an important figure in devotional literature, as his experiences and words have encouraged believers all around the world for 5 centuries to find their way through the soul's dark night.

Please listen, learn, and share with others.

Join guest host, Pastor Rob Fultz, currently Pastor, Saddleback Church, Corona, Campus (California USA), as he presents a men's session entitled, Into the Grey

One of the saddest realities of human existence is the fact that so many people carry around the unbearable weight of guilt from past mistakes.

The existence of guilt is one of the primary reasons psychologists, counselors, therapists, physicians, pharmacists, and florists stay perpetually busy. People all around the world seek to assuage their guilt through so many things and yet, for the most part, people remain locked in the grip of either 'guilt' itself... or the toxins and captors that promised freedom from guilt.

I doubt if this is overstated.

People truly are riddled with guilt from past mistakes and besetting sins from which they just can't get free.

It's really, really, really time for that to end. But it isn't automatic. Freedom from the pain of guilt is available to all, but receiving such freedom (emancipation, really) comes on God's terms, not ours.

For a person, any person, who wants to truly be free... freedom awaits. But the process of being forgiven cannot be short-circuited, otherwise we remain in its suffocating grip.

In this important podcast episode, we will explore what I believe are the six scriptural principles of freedom from guilt. And failure to comply with these six principles is "Why You Still Feel Guilty."

Let's explore them together. You can also find a video version of this discussion, given in a Facebook LIVE event in July 2017 (possibly available for a limited time) at www.podcastseminary.online or www.facebook.com/podcastseminary.

My prayer is that you are ready to surrender to these divine truths from the pages of scripture, and finally be free. Come experience freedom from guilt through confession, and by acknowledging truth, all of which will help your conscience and heart come to terms with the past.

Lots of people wonder how to do it, but never ask.

Now that tens of millions listen to podcasts weekly, it's time for "knowing how to subscribe to and play podcasts" to become common cultural knowledge.

Just like everyone knows how to use a QWERTY keyboard, create a PowerPoint, or download an app, it's necessary in our world to be able to access the enormous troves of information available in podcasts.

Here's the Podcast Seminary One-Minute Guide. In it, you'll "Learn How to Subscribe to a Podcast (in only one minute)."

Then, after you master this important skill, be sure to pass it on to others. Seriously. It's simply a fact that a great many people hear about but don't know how to engage audio podcasts.

And Podcast Seminary and others in the podcasting community want to help equip you so you'll be able to learn and enjoy the wonders of wisdom available in this tremendous medium of human communication.

Enjoy-- then share!

"We need never shout across the spaces to an absent God. He is nearer than our own soul, closer than our most secret thoughts"

-A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God

When we speak about God's hiddenness, we're speaking about what the Latins called "Deus Absconditus," The Hidden God.

There are times in the Christian life when God hides; Times when He shields Himself from our visibility. Though God is always there, an everywhere…. He cannot be 'not there.' But this phrase best describes the awful and painstaking experience of knowing God has chosen not to reveal Himself to us at a given time.

When this happens, what does it mean? What can we learn from Deus Absconditus? That's what we'll learn in this episode of Podcast Seminary: "When God Hides from Us," from Podcast Seminary Dean, Dr. Freddy Cardoza

Lots of people have moments of spiritual inspiration, but they allow them to pass fleetingly. This is an enormous mistake because it is in those moments that God is impressing you to meet with Him so we can have a divine encounter.

In this podcast you will learn the secret of this one simple practice that has the power to revolutionize your spiritual life.

Join Dr. Freddy Cardoza the Podcast Seminary Dean, as he explores how this catalyst can lead to greater spiritual power and impact in your life, and in the life of others.