Welcome back to “Practical Faith!”  Over several consecutive episodes, I am sharing with you some of the notes and insights I took away from a wonderful spiritual life retreat I attended a few years ago.  Our retreat speaker was a man named Barry Brown, and the retreat theme was “Following Jesus and Becoming Like Him.”

Thomas à Kempis, in his book The Imitation of Christ, said, “Choose one thing to learn from Christ each year, and soon you will be like Him.”  So, what is the next step for you?  What’s your next 'one thing’ that God is calling you to focus on this year to become more like Christ?  If you do this, then in a few years you will “soon be like Him”!

Let’s reset our view on this together: there is a big difference between a bribe and a reward...

YOU are all strategically positioned – by the Lord Jesus – in homes, in schools, in businesses – for Kingdom impact in a way that pastors and missionaries like me long for!  We wish we could have the impact in people’s homes, schools, and businesses that you all have!

Callings from God are not ranked.  Some are not better or more impressive or more important than others.  What is most important is humble obedience.  Faithfully serving God right where you are is the very highest calling. 

Jesus wants to meet you in your place of pain, your place of failure, of disappointment.  He wants to meet you there so that He can deal with it and heal you there.

Today's episode is in response to a listener's question: What do you do if you've prayed about something for a long time and just can't sense any clear answer or direction from the Lord?

Today I'll share with you a statement that was sent to me from a moral relativist – this is a person who opposes the idea moral absolutes – and the response I sent back.

Following the prayer model provided by Jesus in Matthew 6:10, I decided to let that sentence be a template for my prayers, replacing the words “on earth” with other personalized places and locations that I wanted to specifically ask for God’s kingdom to come and His will to be done:

Given my life circumstances, it is likely that I will die someday as a result of consumption or entertainment... This prospect is beginning to eclipse my fear of persecution and martyrdom.