Rediscovering Faith

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What happens after you surrender your life to God? How do you keep living that “yes” when circumstances change, new opportunities arise, or old patterns resurface?

In “A Surrender That Keeps Walking,” Pastor Evan Ryder explores how wholehearted surrender becomes a continuing posture of faith. This episode concludes our week on sanctifying grace in The Journey series on Rediscovering Faith.

Drawing from 1 Thessalonians 5:23–24, we discover hope for both a decisive work of heart transformation and a continuing life of Christian growth. Through the Holy Spirit, God can cleanse our hearts and form wholehearted love for him and our neighbors. As we encounter new situations, we learn to express that love through everyday obedience.

Using this week’s image of hiking shoes, we consider what it means to receive God’s provision and keep moving forward. The trail ahead includes decisions we cannot anticipate today—but God’s faithfulness accompanies every step.

In this episode:
• Explore how sanctifying grace shapes a life of ongoing discipleship.
• Learn to express your surrender in new circumstances and decisions.
• Respond honestly when you recognize resistance, pride, or resentment.
• Write a personal prayer surrendering your past, present, and future.
• Discover the value of sharing your journey with a pastor or trusted Christian friend.

Whether you’re making a fresh commitment to God or learning to live out a surrender you’ve already made, this Christian devotional offers encouragement for the road ahead.

Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 5:23–24

Travel Log Response: Write your own prayer of surrender. Offer God your past, your present, and the future you cannot yet see. Then share your response with a pastor or trusted Christian friend who can pray with you.

Carry this promise into your day: “The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.”

Have a prayer request or question? Use the “Share Comments or Questions” link in the podcast description. We would love to pray with you.

Follow Rediscovering Faith for Bible-based devotionals on discipleship, spiritual growth, and the journey of grace. Share this episode with someone who needs encouragement, and leave a rating or review to help others find the podcast.

Send us your questions and reflections!

Can you trust God with everything—including the parts of your life you’re afraid to surrender?

In “Can I Trust Him with Everything?” Pastor Evan Ryder explores how fear, disappointment, and the desire for control can make surrender difficult. This episode of Rediscovering Faith continues The Journey series with an invitation to entrust your past, present, and future to the God who loves you completely.

Drawing from 1 Thessalonians 5:23–24, we reflect on sanctifying grace: the Holy Spirit’s work of cleansing our hearts and forming wholehearted love for God and our neighbors. The God inviting us to surrender is the God of peace, whose faithfulness gives us confidence to take our next step.

Using this week’s image of hiking shoes, we move from recognizing God’s provision to personally receiving it. What would it look like to welcome his transforming work into the places you’ve guarded most closely?

In this episode:
• Recognize fears and disappointments that make trusting God difficult.
• Bring your hurt and hesitation honestly into prayer.
• Explore how Jesus reveals the character of the God calling you to surrender.
• Understand consecration as offering your whole self to God.
• Take a concrete step in response to God’s sanctifying grace.

Whether you’re facing an uncertain future, wrestling with a cherished plan, or struggling to release an old grievance, this Christian devotional invites you to trust God’s love and direction.

Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 5:23–24

Travel Log Reflection: What is keeping you from trusting the God who continually offers you his love? How are you choosing to respond to his sanctifying grace today?

Take time to journal and pray: “Lord, I give you my whole life. Show me how to live that surrender.”

Have a prayer request or question? Use the “Share Comments or Questions” link in the podcast description. We would love to pray with you.

Follow Rediscovering Faith for Bible-based devotionals on discipleship, spiritual growth, and the journey of grace. Share this episode with someone who needs encouragement, and leave a rating or review to help others find the podcast.

Send us your questions and reflections!

Can God really change the parts of your life that seem stuck? In “He Is Faithful—He Will Do It,” Pastor Evan Ryder explores the promise of 1 Thessalonians 5:23–24 and the hope of sanctifying grace.

This episode of Rediscovering Faith continues The Journey series by slowing down to reflect on Paul’s prayer: “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through.” Discover how the Holy Spirit works throughout our lives, cleansing our hearts and forming wholehearted love for God and our neighbors.

When spiritual growth feels discouraging, this passage directs our attention to God’s character. The one who calls us is faithful—and we can trust him to accomplish the transformation we cannot produce ourselves.

In this episode:
• Explore what sanctification means for your everyday life.
• Reflect on God’s concern for your whole person—spirit, soul, and body.
• Challenge the assumption that old patterns must always define you.
• Discover how surrender, trust, and obedience respond to God’s grace.
• Turn Scripture into a personal prayer for heart transformation.

Using this week’s image of hiking shoes, we consider how God equips us to keep walking in faith. There are still steps to take, but his presence and provision sustain the journey.

Whether you’re new to following Jesus or have been a Christian for years, this Bible-based devotional invites you to renew your confidence in God’s faithful work.

Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 5:23–24

Travel Log Reflection: What is God offering you through this promise? What are you being invited to lay down so you can receive his work more fully?

Take a few minutes to write the passage as a first-person prayer. Bring your hopes, struggles, and hesitation honestly before God.

Have a prayer request or question? Use the “Share Comments or Questions” link in the podcast description. We would love to pray with you.

Follow Rediscovering Faith for Christian devotionals on discipleship, spiritual growth, and the journey of grace. Share this episode with someone who needs encouragement, and leave a rating or review to help others find the podcast.

Send us your questions and reflections!

What are you still trying to control? Following Jesus can bring us to moments when trusting God means releasing something we would rather keep in our own hands.

In “Who Is Holding the Reins?” Pastor Evan Ryder explores surrender, sanctifying grace, and the Holy Spirit’s power to transform our hearts for wholehearted love. Continuing The Journey series on Rediscovering Faith, this episode invites you to consider who gets the final say in your everyday decisions.

Drawing from 1 Thessalonians 5:23–24, we discover the hope behind Paul’s prayer that God would sanctify us “through and through.” God’s grace reaches into our desires, relationships, fears, and plans—including the places where we’re reluctant to let him work.

Using this week’s image of hiking shoes, we explore what it means to receive God’s provision and take a concrete step of faith.

In this episode:
• Recognize the conditions we sometimes place on following Jesus.
• Explore how fear, past hurts, and attachment to our preferences can make surrender difficult.
• Discover how sanctifying grace transforms even our willingness to obey.
• Consider what it means to entrust your past, present, and future to God.
• Respond through honest prayer and a practical step of surrender.

Whether you’re facing a difficult decision, holding on to resentment, or struggling to release control, this Christian devotional offers encouragement rooted in God’s faithful love.

Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 5:23–24

Travel Log Reflection: What areas of your life are you still trying to control, do in your own strength, or hang on to?

Take time to journal and pray: “God, what would trusting you here look like today?”

Have a prayer request or question? Use the “Share Comments or Questions” link in the podcast description. We would love to pray with you.

Follow Rediscovering Faith for Bible-based devotionals on discipleship, spiritual growth, and the journey of grace. Share this episode with someone who needs encouragement, and leave a rating or review to help others find the podcast.

Send us your questions and reflections!

Does following Jesus sometimes feel like everything depends on you? You want to grow in faith, overcome old patterns, and love others well—but trying harder has left you exhausted.

In “You Don’t Have to Do This Alone,” Pastor Evan Ryder explores the hope of sanctifying grace: God’s work through the Holy Spirit to cleanse our hearts, transform our lives, and enable us to love God and our neighbors wholeheartedly.

This episode of Rediscovering Faith continues The Journey series with a new image: hiking shoes. Just as proper footwear equips us for a difficult trail, God’s grace provides what determination alone cannot supply. The journey still includes challenges, but we can walk with confidence in God’s presence and power.

Drawing from 1 Thessalonians 5:23–24, we reflect on a life-changing promise: “The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.”

In this episode, discover:
• What sanctification means for everyday Christian living.
• How spiritual growth can become an exhausting exercise in willpower.
• How the Holy Spirit transforms our hearts for holy love.
• How prayer, obedience, and surrender help us respond to God’s grace.
• Why God’s faithfulness gives us hope as we continue following Jesus.

Whether you’re new to faith or have followed Jesus for years, this devotional invites you to bring your struggles honestly to God and trust him to work deeply within you.

Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 5:23–24

Travel Log Reflection: Where have I begun to believe that my life with God depends entirely on me?

Take a few minutes to journal, pray, and carry God’s promise into your day.

Have a prayer request or a question? Use the “Share Comments or Questions” link to connect with us. We would love to pray with you.

Follow Rediscovering Faith for more Bible-based devotionals on discipleship, spiritual growth, and the journey of grace. Share this episode with someone who needs encouragement, and leave a rating or review to help others find the podcast.

Send us your questions and reflections!

How has God’s saving grace changed the direction of your story—and who might need to hear about it?

In Episode 5 of Week 3 of The Journey, Pastor Evan Ryder concludes this week’s exploration of saving grace through Jesus’s parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15:17–24.

The son was lost, but grace found him. He was far from home, but grace awakened him. He was covered in the evidence of the distant country, but grace embraced him. He believed he had lost his identity as a son, but grace restored him.

Now he has a story worth sharing.

A Christian testimony is not primarily a story about how bad we once were or how good we have become. It is a story about what Jesus has done. The power of our testimony does not depend upon having a dramatic past or a spectacular conversion. Its power is found in the grace of the Father who welcomes lost people home.

If Jesus has forgiven you, freed you from shame, restored hope, changed your desires, softened your heart, healed a relationship, or taught you to walk in a new direction, you have a story.

Saving grace does not look identical in every life because sin damages people in different ways. But grace always begins restoring what sin has broken. When we share those stories, we help other people imagine what the grace of God could do in their lives.

In this episode:

• What makes a Christian testimony powerful
• Why your story does not need to be dramatic
• How to share your testimony without glorifying your past
• Why wisdom and privacy still matter
• How stories of transformation give others hope
• How gratitude becomes a witness to God’s grace

For today’s Travel Log exercise, imagine yourself in the setting of Luke 15. The Father has run toward you, embraced you, and welcomed you home. Write a letter thanking Him for His forgiveness, love, and restoring grace.

Then share your encounter with God’s saving grace with a trusted parent, pastor, Christian friend, or mature believer. Simply tell them where you were, how God’s grace met you, and what Jesus is changing in your life.

Today’s question:

How has God’s saving grace changed the direction of my story—and who might need to hear about it?

Your story does not have to make you look impressive. It only needs to point toward the goodness of your Father.

Rediscovering Faith is a Christian podcast hosted by Pastor Evan Ryder that helps listeners grow closer to Jesus through biblical teaching, personal reflection, practical discipleship, and prayer.

Scripture: Luke 15:17–24
Series: The Journey
Week 3: Saving Grace
Episode 5: “A Story Worth Sharing”

Send us your questions and reflections!

What will you find when you turn toward God and begin coming home?

In Episode 4 of Week 3 of The Journey, Pastor Evan Ryder explores one of the most beautiful moments in Jesus’s parable of the prodigal son. While the lost son is still a long way from home, his father sees him, is moved with compassion, runs toward him, embraces him, and welcomes him home.

The son is moving toward the father—but the father is already moving toward him.

This is the heart of saving grace. We do not have to clean ourselves up, repair all the damage, or prove that we are worthy before coming to God. Romans 5:8 tells us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Before we began looking for the road home, God’s grace was already reaching toward us.

The father does not deny the seriousness of his son’s choices. Grace tells the truth about sin. But the father also refuses to allow the son’s failure to have the final word about his identity. The son returns hoping to survive as a servant; the father restores him to belonging as a son.

The robe, ring, sandals, embrace, and celebration all communicate the restoring work of grace. Saving grace does more than forgive our past. It restores our relationship with God, heals the identity damaged by sin and shame, and teaches us to live as God’s sons and daughters.

In this episode:

• What the father’s response reveals about God
• Why we do not have to earn our way home
• How grace holds truth and compassion together
• The difference between forgiveness and full restoration
• How shame distorts our identity
• What it means to receive salvation as a gift

Today’s Travel Log questions:

As you imagine the father embracing his returning son, what words of love do you hear your heavenly Father speaking over you?

Have you accepted God’s saving grace? If so, what about your journey with God makes more sense now?

Some of us find it easier to confess our sin than to receive the Father’s love. But the compass is pointing home—and when we turn toward the Father, we discover that He has already come running toward us.

Rediscovering Faith is a Christian podcast hosted by Pastor Evan Ryder that helps listeners grow closer to Jesus through biblical teaching, personal reflection, practical discipleship, and prayer.

Scripture: Luke 15:17–24; Romans 5:8
Series: The Journey
Week 3: Saving Grace
Episode 4: “The Father Runs Toward You”

Send us your questions and reflections!

Recognizing that you are lost is important—but eventually, you have to get up and begin the journey home.

In Episode 3 of Week 3 of The Journey, Pastor Evan Ryder continues exploring Jesus’s parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15:17–24. After coming to his senses and recognizing how far he has wandered, the lost son makes a life-changing decision: “I will get up and go to my father.”

This is the turning point of his story—and it gives us a powerful picture of biblical repentance.

Repentance is more than feeling guilty, regretting the consequences of our choices, or recognizing that we have traveled in the wrong direction. Repentance is a response to God’s grace that produces a change of direction. The son does not remain in the pigpen thinking about how lost he is. He gets up and begins walking toward home.

Shame tells us that we are hopeless and should remain hidden. Saving grace tells us to acknowledge the truth—and then get up. The Father’s mercy is greater than our sin.

In this Christian devotional, you will be invited to enter the story personally by rewriting Luke 15:17–24 in the first person. Where the passage says “he,” write “I.” Allow the son’s recognition to become your confession, his decision to become your decision, and his journey home to reveal the direction God is calling you to travel.

In this episode:

• Why recognition must become action
• The difference between shame and repentance
• Why repentance is more than feeling guilty
• How saving grace enables us to turn toward God
• What it means to trust the Father’s mercy
• How to take one practical step toward home

Today’s Travel Log question:

What would it mean for me to get up and take one step toward the Father today?

Your next step may be an honest prayer, confessing something you have hidden, asking for forgiveness, contacting a trusted Christian friend, or surrendering an area you have tried to control. You do not have to complete the entire journey today. By God’s grace, you can get up and begin.

Rediscovering Faith is a Christian podcast hosted by Pastor Evan Ryder that helps listeners grow closer to Jesus through biblical teaching, personal reflection, practical discipleship, and prayer.

Scripture: Luke 15:17–24
Series: The Journey
Week 3: Saving Grace
Episode 3: “The Journey Home”

Send us your questions and reflections!

How can you follow the right directions if you don’t know which way is north?

In Episode 2 of Week 3 of The Journey, Pastor Evan Ryder continues exploring Jesus’s parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15:17–24. Once the lost son comes to his senses, he must take a difficult but necessary step: he must admit that he is lost.

The son believed that leaving his father would bring freedom, satisfaction, and independence. Instead, his journey led him into hunger, isolation, and bondage. Returning home required more than regretting the consequences of his choices. He had to stop defending his brokenness, acknowledge that he had been traveling in the wrong direction, and turn toward his father.

This is the heart of repentance.

Repentance is more than feeling guilty or sorry. It is a change of direction made possible by God’s grace. Saving grace helps us tell the truth about where sin has taken us, points us toward Jesus, and establishes true north in our lives.

Using the image of a compass, this Christian devotional explores why even a detailed map cannot help us if we are facing the wrong direction. In the same way, the teachings of Jesus may seem confusing—or even foolish—until God’s grace reorients our hearts.

As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 1:18, the message of the cross may appear foolish to those who are being destroyed, but to those who are being saved, it is the power of God. The way of Jesus often challenges the direction of the world. Jesus teaches us to surrender, serve, forgive, love our enemies, and trust God rather than making our own satisfaction the highest goal of life.

When saving grace establishes true north, the map begins to make sense.

In this episode:

• Why admitting we are lost is necessary
• How sin distorts our sense of direction
• The biblical meaning of repentance
• Why repentance is a response to God’s grace
• How the cross reorients our understanding of life
• Why the way of Jesus can appear foolish
• How saving grace points us back toward God

Today’s Travel Log question:

Where in your life have you become lost and found yourself in need of the compass of God’s saving grace to point you back toward God?

Is there an attitude, relationship, habit, or choice you have been defending even though it is pulling you away from God? God does not reveal our disorientation to shame or condemn us. His grace shows us where we are so He can lead us home.

Rediscovering Faith is a Christian podcast hosted by Pastor Evan Ryder that helps listeners grow closer to Jesus through biblical teaching, personal reflection, practical discipleship, and prayer. This season, The Journey, explores the journey of God’s grace—including prevenient grace, saving grace, and sanctifying grace—and what it means to follow Jesus one step at a time.

Scripture: Luke 15:17–24; 1 Corinthians 1:18
Series: The Journey
Week 3: Saving Grace
Episode 2: “Finding True North”

Send us your questions and reflections!

What happens when you suddenly realize you are lost?

In Episode 1 of Week 3 of The Journey, Pastor Evan Ryder explores Jesus’s parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15:17–24 and the moment the lost son “came to his senses.” After searching for freedom far from his father, the son discovers that what looked like independence had become bondage—and what promised satisfaction had left him empty.

Sin does more than produce guilt. It disorients us. It convinces us that south is north, that isolation is independence, and that life can be found apart from the God who gave us life. When that disorientation becomes familiar, we may even begin defending the very things that are hurting us.

But God’s saving grace meets us while we are lost.

Using the image of a compass, this Christian devotional explores how saving grace awakens us to the truth, reorients our lives toward God, and invites us to begin the journey home. Repentance is not something we accomplish without God’s help—it is itself a response made possible by grace. Even the moment when the son recognizes his condition is evidence that grace is already at work.

And when the son finally turns toward home, he discovers something even greater: the Father is already moving toward him. God’s saving grace does more than show us the way home. It welcomes us home, restores our identity, and begins making us whole.

In this episode:

• What sin does to our sense of direction
• Why “coming to our senses” is a work of grace
• How saving grace functions like a compass
• The relationship between grace, repentance, and salvation
• What the Father’s embrace reveals about the heart of God
• How to recognize God’s invitation to come home

Today’s Travel Log question:

What similarities do you see between a compass and God’s saving grace?

Where has sin caused disorientation in your life? How might God’s grace be helping you see your situation more clearly? Is the Father inviting you to get up, turn around, and begin walking toward home?

Rediscovering Faith is a Christian podcast hosted by Pastor Evan Ryder that helps listeners grow closer to Jesus through biblical teaching, personal reflection, practical discipleship, and prayer. This season, The Journey, explores the journey of God’s grace—including prevenient grace, saving grace, and sanctifying grace—and what it means to follow Jesus one step at a time.

Scripture: Luke 15:17–24
Series: The Journey
Week 3: Saving Grace
Episode 1: “When You Come to Your Senses”