Our capacity for self-delusion, for being led by the nose by this conspiracy theory or that radical dogma, is remarkable. Just look around. Amidst the swill of social media, many are being sucked into the deep vortex of delusion.

Imagine you meet someone who's convinced that the earth is flat or that aeroplanes spray chemicals to control people's minds. So you patiently sit with them, showing them NASA photos, explaining basic physics, even quoting trusted scientists.

But no matter what evidence you bring, your friend just shakes their head and says, "That's what they want you to believe." Your words of wisdom and truth wash over them like water off a duck's back—completely wasted. What do you do with that?

Proverbs 23:9 Do not speak in the hearing of a fool, for he will despise the good sense of your words.  ESV

Fool is such a harsh word. But sometimes, it's also the right one. Doing what I do, I receive a lot of hate mail from people who call me all sorts of names, accusing me of all sorts of things.

It really bothered me at first and I'd spend hours writing to each one, trying to shine the light of God's love into their hearts. But can I tell you, not a single one of them came round.

And harsh as it may sound, eventually you have to heed God's advice:

Do not speak in the hearing of a fool, for he will despise the good sense of your words.

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

For a woman quietly carrying the burden of caregiving, short daily messages of biblical encouragement became a steady reminder that God had not abandoned her in her hardship.

The combined talent of the more than eight billion people walking the planet right now is truly staggering. And yet what proportion of that talent goes to waste, simply because the world doesn't value or acknowledge it? Think about it. The loss of all that talent to the collective human enterprise is mind-blowing!

So many people have been damaged by the rough and tumble of life in a world where everyone's clamouring for attention and success; where, because how they look or where they come from, their value is diminished in the eyes of others.

You have to ask yourself, why do we do that? And why does God allow it?

Proverbs 15:3-4 The LORD sees what happens everywhere. He watches everyone, good and evil. Kind words are like a life-giving tree, but lying words will crush your spirit.

Make no mistake. None of this has escaped God's attention. The terrible things we do to others happen right under His nose. God sees the evil, and He will deal with it when the time comes. But in the meantime, there's something that you and I can do that'll make a huge difference in countless people's lives: Kind words are like a life-giving tree.

The original Hebrew language paints a beautiful picture of those kind words - a healing tongue. Speech that restores, soothes, and encourages brings vitality, growth and blessing - like a life-giving tree.

It's remarkable how little encouragement some people actually need to begin the process of becoming all that God made them to be. You can be the one who, through your kind words, your healing tongue, restores their life to all that it was meant to be. Yes … you.

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

The seven deadly sins – lust, gluttony, greed, laziness, wrath, envy and pride – are tearing this world apart. Each one of us deals with at least one in our makeup. But God has graciously given us the power to break free from their clutches.

Berni: I'm joined again today by my good friend, Keith Henry. Keith, you've been great over these last couple of weeks. Time has flown; we're in our last day.

Keith: Yep, it's been very good Berni, enjoyed it very much.

Berni: You know, what's struck me as I've listened to you speaking about our different personality types and our weaknesses, is how complex we are as people. You know, we see people and we interact with them during the day but we never really stop to think how incredibly complex we each are. You know, there are so many layers and as we've looked at each personality type.

I'm going to ask you to go through those personality types again and look at the strengths and weaknesses of those personality types, just to kind of tie it all together today. But, you look at all that and you stand back and you think, 'man, these people couldn't possibly have evolved from some primeval slime. You know, if God didn't create us, it just, you know it takes more faith, from me, to believe in evolving from the primeval slime than it does to believe in the Creator who created these incredibly complex people.

Berni: We talked about seven different deadly sins. I'd just like to go through each of them again today, and you said, look, each personality type has a virtue, something that they're really good at.

Keith: Yes.

Berni: And, sort of like a flip side of a coin, which is the down side of that personality type and from what I gather from what you were saying was, that the way that, say a leader deals with his or her lust is by exercising their virtue which is Godly. Is that what you were saying?

Keith: That's right. Gods given us a way out for each personality and each sin, out of the seven deadly sins and in terms of a leader, because they have a lust for life, they have an adventurous spirit and it can undo them because they get into all the sins which is quite easy to open to because they are so active and so out there, that they have to react to those things in a Godly way but what do we mean by that? The one, the Godly way that suits the leader is justice and truth. You think of God, He's a loving God so they have to have that love but they really want justice.

Berni: Is that a natural inclination for the leader?

Keith: It is.

Berni: And so, if the leader replaces the down side with the up side, that's how he or she wins.

Keith: Exactly. So, they have to look at justice and truth in terms of "what is Gods justice" not revenge in the world.

Berni: Okay, so the leader, the down side for that personality type is lust but if we can summarise the virtue corresponding, is Godliness.

Keith: Yes.

Berni: Okay, that's great. Okay, tell me about the encourager. The encourager's sin is gluttony which was kind of weird.

Keith: Yes, they want more of everything and they want to do everything. They just don't settle down, they're forever on the move, life's exciting for them but they have to focus more. They actually have to get one thing that they're passionate about and focus on it. So they become more in moderation, not so many things that they're doing at one time.

Berni: Okay, so for the encourager, the sin is gluttony but the strength, the virtue is moderation.

Keith: Yes, that's right.

Berni: Okay. What about the server, the server is someone who serves. Love being around servers, all you servers can come over to my place.

Keith: Well, the server, in this case, we're talking about a server who's got greed and the greed we're referring there is hoarding things. So it's not gluttony as we said, of wanting more and more, it's hoarding things because

What happens when we repeatedly ignore the quiet moments when we know we should make something right? Here’s how God calls us back before our hearts grow hard.

We live in a world that loves to hand out medals and awards - in school, academia, sport, entertainment … you name it. So each year, like clockwork, Hollywood rolls out the red carpet for the Academy Awards; the Oscars, as they're known — a night drenched in glitz and glamour. Flashing cameras, glittering gowns, tailored tuxedos, and million-dollar smiles line the stage where the world's biggest stars gather.

Those gold statuettes gleam under dazzling lights as limousines queue outside and champagne flows inside. It's the entertainment industry's crown jewel — a spectacle of elegance, luxury, and prestige that captures the imagination of millions watching on across the globe.

Yet in a recent interview, Hollywood A-Lister and dual Academy Award winner Denzel Washington said, "Man gives the award. God gives the reward. On my last day, the Oscars won't do me any good."

Hebrews 11:24-26 Moses grew up and became a man. He refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. He chose not to enjoy the pleasures of sin that last such a short time. Instead, he chose to suffer with God's people. He did this because he had faith. He thought it was better to suffer for the Messiah than to have all the treasures of Egypt. He was waiting for the reward that God would give him.

We can be so busy chasing the world's accolades and awards that we lose sight of the crown of life that comes to the one who suffers for Christ, who endures to the end.

Aim for the crown, not the trophy, because while the trophy lasts for a time, in Christ, the crown of life is yours for eternity.

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

You've probably heard of the Seven Deadly Sins. Sounds old fashioned, but actually those same seven are tearing people's lives apart. Which one are you most prone to, and how can you break free from its clutches?

Over this last week and a half on the program, we've been spending some time looking at what are called the "seven deadly sins". Not because we want to do a guilt trip, not because we want to bandy round some seemingly old fashioned word like "sin" but because sin ruins our lives and the seven deadly sins that we've been talking about over these last couple of weeks certainly do that.

Lust, gluttony, greed, laziness, anger, envy and pride; seven of the deadliest. That's the problem with sin, it robs us of life itself. Spend your time being angry all the time, what joy are you going to have? Do the gluttony thing and the weight will ruin your health and quality of life. Lust ruins marriages. On it goes; sin ruins lives, it's plain and it's simple.

I just want to spend some time today with Keith Henry again, our special guest, being honest about the consequences. Tomorrow, we're going to look at the wondrous, beautiful solution but today, let's get real about the consequences. What do you think Keith, do you think that we try and sweep them under the carpet, these sins sometimes?

Keith: I think we can but also think that we don't know what to do about them and secondly we don't feel we have any power to do something about them.

Berni: You see, what strikes me is, let's assume for a moment, God made us, right. Let's assume for a moment God knew what He was doing, didn't make a mistake.

Keith: Yes.

Berni: Right, what all the experts, including yourself, tell us is that each personality type is prone to a particular one of these downfalls. It's almost like each personality type has a good side but there's an underside.

Keith: Yes.

Berni: So the sin of lust is one that the leader is prone to. Gluttony, what personality type, remind me, is prone to gluttony?

Keith: Encourager.

Berni: The encourager. Greed.

Keith: Is the server, it's a fear.

Berni: Yeah. Laziness.

Keith: Is the teacher.

Berni: Anger.

Keith: Is the prophet.

Berni: Envy.

Keith: Is the carer.

Berni: And pride.

Keith: Is the giver.

Berni: See, each one of those is prone to one of those sins. What was God thinking, I wonder sometimes, giving us each one of those sins? See, God doesn't have any sin in Him and yet He creates personality types and we all end up with a particular Achilles heel, if you like.

Keith: We do but I don't think God made us to actually have these things, it's actually in the form of our culture and our nature that is not divine, we have these sins which manifest in our personality, more so in 1 personality than in another and God provides the way out.

Berni: Yeah, we're going to talk about that. I was interested though, one of the passages that's always drawn me to it is in 2 Corinthians, chapter 12 and I want to share this with you. This is the apostle Paul, 2 Corinthians 12, beginning in verse 7:

Therefore to keep me from being too elated, (writes Paul) a thorn was given me in my flesh, a messenger of satan to torment me and keep me from being too elated.

Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me but He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in your weakness." So I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses so the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and calamities for the sake of Christ. For whenever I am weak then I am strong.

The fist few hundred times I read this passage I thought this thorn in the flesh must be, maybe he's go

What if the moments when God corrects you are not signs of rejection, but reminders that you deeply belong to Him?

In the affluent West where I live, when there's a tragedy in another Western nation – a school shooting, a train accident, a terrorist incident –  it's all over the news. But the wars and terrorism raging in Africa never get a mention, despite the suffering and carnage. Most have never even heard of the plight of the dispossessed and the stateless, like the Rohingya minority in Myanmar. Why is that?

In an episode of the American Drama, The West Wing, an aide says to the President: "The idea that some lives are worth more than others is the root of all that's wrong with the world."

The President replies quietly: "Yes, it is."

That cuts deep because, in reality, that's how the world operates — some lives valued, others discarded, some lifted high, others overlooked. And if we're honest, sometimes we think like that too.

But the Apostle Paul tells us something radically different:.

2 Corinthians 5:14-15 For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. (ESV)

In God's economy, no life is worth more than another. Christ didn't die only for the powerful and ignore the weak. He died for all. His sacrifice levels the ground at the foot of the cross.

And if Christ's love compels us, then we cannot rank people by status, race, income, usefulness, or background. To live for Jesus means to see every life through His eyes — equally precious, equally in need of grace, equally worth our love.

The idea that some lives matter less is the root cause of all that is wrong with the world.

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