A few seconds can change everything. Discover how a simple pause before you speak can prevent regret and lead to wiser, more life-giving words.

We live in a world of cause and effect. You spend more than you earn, you end up in debt. Cause and effect. So how come, well why is it that you and I are such masters of self-deception when it comes to the consequences of our…sin.

We live in a world of cause and effect. We know that; you work, you earn, your bank balance goes up. You buy, you spend, your bank balance goes down. Cause and effect. You spend more than you earn, you go broke. You earn more than you spend, you have savings. Simple. Cause and effect. You break the law, you go to jail, at least that's the theory. You obey the law, you stay free. Cause and effect.

But when it comes to how we live our lives, how we behave and think and speak and act, we're pretty good at denying the effect from the cause, at least I am. "Oh look, I know I was rude to him but, but he deserved it!" Never mind it ruined a relationship. Never mind it injured the person. Never mind that it undermined his self-esteem and that had an impact on the way he brought up his kids. Cause and effect; oh never mind.

It's true, isn't it? Cause and effect is alive and well but when it comes to us violating the laws of cause and effect, we are only too ready to make excuses for ourselves. Well no matter how many excuses we make, cause and effect rolls inexorably on. You can't avoid it, it just does.

None of us likes to talk too much about consequences but it's the consequences of the dumb things we get up to that gives sin it's power. I'm going to come back to the title of this series that we're going through this week and next week, it's called "Breaking Free from the Power of Sin".

See sin is not some old-fashioned concept of moralising, it simple means this; to miss the mark, to miss the point of life. And see, when we talk about breaking free from the power of sin, I'm assuming that sin has some power, that this whole kind of lemming-type desire we have to miss the whole point of life is powerful and addictive.

You know I believe that each one of us is addicted to something. There's some form of sin that's just our sin, our weakness that robs us of life. The heroin addict knows that it's bad for them, knows that it's ruining their lives but the addiction is so powerful. They want to do something about it but they can't because they're addicted.

You may have heard of the seven deadly sins; lust, gluttony, greed, laziness, anger, envy and pride. And my hunch is, each one of us relates to at least one of those in our lives. And like the heroin addict, we kind of know they have consequences. We know they're ruining our lives, we just can't do anything about them.

If your particular weakness is laziness, you know you never achieve anything. You know that you don't invest in relationships. You know you don't get a sense of fulfilment out of life. If it's anger you know anger ruins relationships. If its pride you realise that you can't work closely with other people. If it's gluttony, well that's obvious. There are consequences. We can't deny them.

Have a listen to the consequences of sin the apostle Paul writes about. Romans chapter 6, beginning at verse 13, he says:

Don't present your members, your body, to sin as instruments of wickedness but instead, present yourselves to God as those who've been brought from death to life and present your body to God as an instrument of goodness and righteousness. Sin will have no dominion over you since you are no longer under the law but under grace. What then? Should we sin because we're not under the law but under grace? Absolutely not!

Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as an obedient slave, you are slaves of the one whom you obey? Either of sin, which leads to death or of obedience which leads to Gods goodness and righteousness. But thanks be to God that you, once having been slaves of

We each, inevitably, arrive at a point where all hope appears lost; where we can't see how we'll survive; where any faith we may have had in God seems so fragile in light of the terrible circumstances that confront us. Perhaps you've been there, perhaps it's yet to come.

Vilhjalmur Stefansson was an Arctic explorer of Icelandic descent. In 1913, his ship was trapped and destroyed by pack ice, leaving him and his men stranded in one of the most inhospitable places on earth. Facing starvation, polar storms, and total isolation, Stefansson leaned on his deep faith and unshakable belief in God's providence.

He adapted by learning from the Inuit, surviving entirely on local resources, and leading his team to safety after years in the Arctic. He later testified that it was the certainty of God's presence and strength that sustained him when all human hope was gone.

Said God to His people Israel, close to the end of seventy years in exile as slaves in Babylon, when all hope appeared lost, when they couldn't see how they'd ever be saved, when their faith in Him seemed so fragile against the might of the Babylonian Empire …

Isaiah 41:10 Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be afraid, for I am your God. I will strengthen you; I will help you; I will hold on to you with My righteous right hand. (HCSB).

When every human resource fails, God's presence doesn't just comfort you—He gives you the strength, the wisdom, the resilience to walk out of the terror back into life once more.

That's His Word. Fresh … for you … today.

Life is hard but we make it harder. Learn God’s way for ordering our lives that doesn’t depend on our own willpower.

There's a great swindle, a great con going on in our society – and in part, we're all being conned. It goes like this – if you look after numero uno – everything else will be fine. We know it doesn't work, but somehow we still want to believe it.

Today … today we're starting a new series that, I have to warn you, the devil does not want you to hear. In fact he'll do anything he can to keep you away from what we're going to be talking about over these coming few days and in fact next week as well. Why? Because if we let loose in our hearts and our lives, the thing that we're going to be talking about, it is going to mess up his game plan for your life and for mine, big time.

Well, what are we going to talk about? The subject is this, Breaking Free from the Power of Sin. That's the name of the series: Breaking Free from the Power of Sin. See, I have this crazy notion that God means, for you and me, to live not just a good life, not just a great life but an utterly sensational life. What I don't mean is that each one of us should live in a mansion with 2 Merc's in the garage.

What I don't mean is that everything in life will go well, always healthy, live to a ripe old age. It doesn't work. Life's not like that. But what I do mean is that, come what may, God means for us to live a life of joy and peace and fulfilment and contentment. The question is; how do you get that life? Problem is there's a big con being perpetrated in this world today.

The big con of this world is that what you do is you earn, you spend, you buy. That'll give you all those things. The big con is that you look after number 1 and everything else will be fine. You and I know it doesn't work. We know that it's a big con but it's a big con that we really, really, really want to swallow, hook, line and sinker And then some joker comes along and talks about sin and you think, "Well you have got to be kidding me. We're not in medieval times, we're not in the 1950's. This is the 21st century. Sin? Oh please, what planet are you living on?"

What does sin conjure up in your mind? Some old-fashioned, moralising, finger-pointing, self-righteousness. That might have worked in the dim dark ages but don't try that religion stuff on me today buddy! Sin, how gullible do you think I am? Crimson clad clergy pointing their bony fingers at me. Get out of here! Hmm, you might wonder, how is it that Berni can articulate this position so passionately? And well, the answer is this: it's one that I held for most of my life.

Religion's a bunch of rules; I don't need a bunch of rules. Sin is an old-fashioned concept, that's it, buzz off! And yet, if we were completely honest with ourselves, each one of us would admit we do things and we think things and we say things that hurt us, that ruin our lives. What we don't often realise is how much they ruin our lives. Ever asked yourself exactly what sin is? Is it an out dated concept or is it real. And does it have consequences. And is it the thing that's robbing me of a full and satisfying life?

Sin is one of the most frequently used words in the Bible, 486 times – 486. There is kind of various concepts but at the heart of it is this notion that God is perfect and that we've rebelled against God and we've broken His law and that will bring punishment. That's the kind of "sin" thing in a nutshell and I guess that's it for many people.

You mention sin and that's what it conjures up; rules, religion, moralising and who needs that? Rebellion against God, well it is that, it's all of those things. But I don't know, my hunch is, giving where we are today maybe that's not the best place to start to really understand what sin means because we've been conned.

See, I used to go scuba diving when I was younger and what you discover when you want to go scuba diving is we were made to float, we weren't made to sink. You jump in the ocean or any body of

I've always loved technology … each new thing seems to offer so much potential to the human race. And yet, I wonder, have we gone too far? Have we allowed it to rob us of living life to the full?

A man buys the latest virtual reality headset, boasting the most vivid worlds imaginable. He spends hours each day in its glow, wandering neon streets, conquering digital empires. But in his obsession, he forgets to open the curtains.

One day, the power goes out. He tears off the headset. The room reeks of stale air. The blinds are caked in dust. And when he pulls them open, sunlight pours in, dazzling his eyes. It's warmer, richer, more real than anything the headset could ever have given him.

1 John 1:7 We should live in the light, where God is. If we live in the light, we have fellowship with each other, and the blood sacrifice of Jesus, God's Son, washes away every sin and makes us clean.

How sad is it that so many wander in the imitative half-light of this world when the light of God's love shines so brightly, if only they'd open the curtains to see? That's precisely what I did for the first 36 years of my life.

And yet, now forgiven by Jesus' sacrifice on that Cross, my life is richer, it has more meaning, more joy, more peace than anything this world alone could ever have offered me.

Friend, there is so much more to life than the glittering trinkets of this world that so readily steal our gaze. Some people live their whole lives in pixels when the sun of God's truth is just outside. Live in the light.

That's God's Word. Fresh … for you … today.

A pilot trying to land her plane in a terrible storm has a choice to make. Amidst the violent turbulence, the zero visibility and the unquestionable danger, she can either trust her instruments to guide her to the landing strip, or panic and lose direction. The best choice? Pretty obvious, isn't it?!

Perhaps you, like me, profess a faith in Jesus, believing (as the Bible says) that the glory of God fills the whole earth. But storms happen. The daily grind grinds you down, at which point, just like our hypothetical pilot, you have a choice to make … one which is far from hypothetical, one which in all honesty will set the course of the rest of your life.

Isaiah 6:1,3 In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting on a very high and wonderful throne. His long robe filled the Temple. Seraph angels stood around him. … The angels were calling to each other, "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD All-Powerful. His Glory fills the whole earth."

King Uzziah had been a strong, long-reigning king. His death (around 740 BC) marked a time of national uncertainty. This vision comes to the Prophet Isaiah at a time of leadership vacuum and spiritual decline in Judah. He's granted a vision of the true King — not dead, but reigning.
I saw Adonai, translated as sovereign, exalted master. And where did Isaiah see Him? High and lifted up, His robe filling the temple, angels surrounding Him.

And friend, that's the reality still. Will you trust that truth to lead you home, or panic and lose direction? The best choice? It's obvious, right? For His glory fills the whole earth.

That's God's Word. Fresh … for you … today.

Obedience is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, societies depend on it for good order, well-being, and basic safety. On the other, as we saw yesterday in discussing the 1994 Rwandan genocide, blind obedience can have devastating consequences.

Mitsuo Fuchida was the commander of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, killing thousands and drawing the Americans into WWII. After the war, bitter and disillusioned, he encountered a story that stopped him cold: a young Christian woman, Peggy Covell, had cared for Japanese POWs with love — even though Japanese soldiers had executed her missionary parents.

She obeyed Christ's command to love her enemies — a command that Fuchida found utterly incomprehensible. What she did and how she did it shattered him. So he read the Bible. He wrestled with Jesus' words. And eventually, he gave his life to Christ, spending the rest of his days preaching the gospel — including to his former enemies.

All that, because one obscure young woman, against every human instinct, obeyed Christ's command - love your enemy. Writes the psalmist …

Psalm 119:93 I will never forget your commands, because through them you gave me new life.

Many consider God's commands in His Word, the Bible, to be outdated, inconvenient and, at times, utterly incomprehensible. How can you possibly love your enemies?

And yet it's been demonstrated time and time and time again, that when we hunker down and obey Him against all odds, against what every fibre of our being is screaming at us, a newness of life breaks out and ripples across the waters.

Never forget His commands, because through them He will give you a new life.

That's God's Word. Fresh … for you … today.

Is it possible to fall in love again when feelings fade? One woman’s story shows how God changes the heart first—and how that transformation can restore love and bring new life.