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Jesus Christ did not come to preserve empty religion. He came to set captives free.

Teaching from Luke 13, Dr. Michael Youssef examines Jesus’ healing of a suffering woman and His confrontation with legalistic religion. In doing so, Christ exposes the danger of man-made rules that obscure God’s mercy and reveals the true character of Kingdom power—holy, compassionate, and unstoppable.

Dr. Youssef also unpacks Jesus’ pictures of the mustard seed and leaven, showing how the Kingdom of God is both present and future. Through the Gospel, His Kingdom continues to advance until Christ returns in glory.

This episode calls listeners to:

• Reject legalism and man-made religion,
• Trust the liberating power of Jesus Christ,
• Repent and believe the Gospel,
• Recognize the present work of God’s Kingdom,
• Intercede faithfully for those still in bondage,
• Live ready for the return of the King.

The Kingdom of God is advancing. The King is coming again. Now is the time to repent, believe, and proclaim the Gospel with urgency.

Scripture Focus: Luke 13:10-21

If today’s teaching stirred a question, burden, or need for prayer, you don’t have to walk through it alone.

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Today on A NEW BEGINNING, a story you’ll never forget. It’s the multi-faceted story of Louie Zamperini – an American hero whose story is told in the blockbuster movie Unbroken.

After being swept into WWII, his plane crashed in the Pacific.

He survived and drifted on a life raft for 47 days, facing sunburn, starvation and sharks.

One day, he and his raft-mates spotted a plane.

Surviving the gunfire, he was taken to a Japanese concentration camp – run by the heartless Matsuhiro Watanabe – nicknamed The Bird.

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Become a Harvest Partner today and join us in knowing God and making Him known through media and large-scale evangelism, our mission of over 30 years.

Explore more resources from Pastor Greg Laurie, including daily devotionals and blogs, designed to answer your spiritual questions and equip you to walk closely with Christ.

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Artificial intelligence can help you build a budget, explain an investment, or compare financial options in seconds. But how much should you trust it with your money?

AI is quickly becoming part of everyday life, including the way we manage our finances. And like any tool, it can be used wisely or unwisely.

For Christians, the better question isn’t simply, “Should I use AI?” but, “How can I use this tool wisely and faithfully?”

When new technology arrives, we can be tempted toward one of two extremes. We either embrace it without much thought, or we become suspicious of it and want nothing to do with it.

Biblical stewardship calls us to a more thoughtful approach.

AI can already be remarkably useful when it comes to financial information. You can ask it to explain the difference between a Roth IRA and a traditional IRA, define an unfamiliar financial term, suggest categories for a spending plan, compare debt-payoff strategies, or help you prepare questions for a financial professional.

Used that way, AI can be a valuable research assistant. But there’s an important difference between having information and exercising wisdom. Proverbs 14:15 says, “The simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps.”

That’s a helpful principle in an age of artificial intelligence. AI can gather, organize, summarize, and analyze information remarkably quickly. But having more information doesn’t remove our responsibility to consider carefully what is true and how we should respond.

Biblical wisdom is more than knowing facts. It’s applying truth faithfully before God—and that requires spiritual discernment.

AI might help you calculate whether you can afford a larger home. But it can’t determine whether buying that home reflects wise stewardship or simply a desire for more.

It can compare investment strategies, but it can’t decide what faithfulness should look like in your particular circumstances. It can calculate how much room you have in your budget to give, but it can’t worship God through generosity.

That doesn’t make AI bad. It simply means we need to keep the tool in its proper place.

Technology can assist the steward. It cannot replace the steward. A few practical guardrails can help us maintain that distinction.

First, verify information before making significant financial decisions.

AI can sound confident even when its answer is incomplete, outdated, or simply wrong. Tax rules change. Investment products differ. Government programs and financial regulations evolve.

The more significant the decision, the more important it is to confirm what you’re seeing with reliable sources or a qualified financial professional. 

AI can help you identify the questions you need to ask. It shouldn’t necessarily be the final authority answering them.

Second, be careful about the information you share.

Avoid entering Social Security numbers, account numbers, passwords, or other sensitive financial information into an AI system unless you fully understand how it will handle and protect that information.

And remember: AI isn’t only available to consumers. Criminals can use it too.

Voice cloning, convincing fake images and videos, and highly personalized scams can make fraudulent requests increasingly difficult to recognize. If you receive an unexpected request involving money—even if it appears to come from someone you know—verify the request through another trusted channel before acting.

A phone call to a number you already know or a face-to-face conversation could prevent an expensive mistake.

Perhaps the most important guardrail is this: Don’t surrender your responsibility to thi

What do you do when you get attacked for your faith? Chip gives you four simple steps that you can use to bolster your confidence and build your courage, when you are criticized for your faith.

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Joe Dallas shares his testimony of being repeatedly molested as a boy and pursuing homosexual encounters as a teenager. After becoming a Christian, Joe struggled to reconcile the gospel with his promiscuous lifestyle, to the point of joining a pro-homosexual church in his quest for peace. Joe explains how the combination of misleading, ‘pro-gay’ theology and the conviction of the Holy Spirit propelled him into becoming a very angry gay activist. Eventually, God’s truth penetrated Joe’s armor, and his whole life was transformed.

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Loving People Through the Truth -- Is it possible to hold on to your biblical convictions without alienating those who don’t share them? Join author and speaker Rosaria Butterfield and Daly as they discuss the art of speaking the truth with love and conviction.

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Do you have a story or comment on how Focus on the Family impacted you or your family? Leave a message for Jim Daly!

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The church we attended in New Jersey grew a lot over the years. So much so, that it was hard to spot visitors. So, our pastor would ask first-timers to stand and introduce themselves right where they were. He'd take one section of the sanctuary at a time, and ask the visitors to stand and introduce themselves.

Well, our family brought our share of visitors, and many of their faces went through three or four colors when they were asked to stand up! We brought Nancy one day. When the pastor mentioned standing up, we gave her that “How about it, Nancy?” She gave us a look back. I would interpret it as saying, “No way!” Well, you can’t blame people. I mean, most of us have a pretty great fear of being conspicuous, and hey, what if no one else stands?

I’m Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about “When You're the Only One Standing.”

Our word for today from the Word of God comes from the book of Daniel 3:1. “King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold, ninety feet high and nine feet wide, and set it up on the plain of Dura.” Okay, now, a decree went out that everyone was supposed to bow down to this image. Here’s how the decree went: “As soon as you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipes and all kinds of music, you must fall down and worship the image of gold that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. Whoever does not fall down and worship will immediately be thrown into a blazing furnace.” It goes on to say, “Therefore, everyone fell down and worshipped it.” Well, almost everyone.

Okay, get the picture. In verse 12, this complaint comes back to the king, “There are some Jews who you’ve set over the affairs of this province—Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego—who pay no attention to you, O king. They did not worship the image.” Here’s the scene, and it is incredible! This flat plain, this big statue, everyone’s on their knees, there’s no place to hide, and here are these three men standing. You talk about conspicuous! And they got heat for it…I mean literally. They got the furnace. And then verse 30 says, “Afterward the king promoted them.” What just happened here? The story has this happy ending!

Actually I think the King — that is capital K, The King — promoted them. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego should still be our heroes, because they had the courage to be the only one standing. Do you? Everyone else at your school, your office, among your friends may be bowing down to the gods of pleasure, money, sex outside of marriage, and increasingly you’ll have to be the only one standing. Don’t bow down.

There may be something even more difficult, though, than taking a stand among unbelievers, and that’s taking a stand among believers. See, the standards and boundaries are moving inside the church today too. Not just in our culture; the church is moving with the culture. God’s people are increasingly compromising on what they watch, and they listen to, and they talk about, and tolerate. Biblical standards on marriage, and divorce, and sexuality are drifting. Christians are tending to forget the lost, and they are retreating into a comfortable entertainment faith, “Just meet my needs.” Sometimes you even are being asked to bow down and compromise within the context of the church when the majority have followed the culture instead of Christ. But God’s truth has never been decided by a vote, and God’s truth hasn’t changed—and it won’t.

As sin seduces more believers, you’ll need the courage to feel a little old fashioned, a little lonely even at church, but you’ve got to remain standing. People sometimes feel conspicuous when they’re asked to stand at our church. Well, more and more, discipleship will mean what it did in Shadrach’s day: the courage to be conspicuous; to be, even among God’s people sometimes, the only one standing - but applauded by Christ.