In this episode, we are looking at God's loving discipline for us. Sons of God must be disciplined by their Heavenly Father.

"It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. " - Hebrews 12:7-8

The purpose of his discipline is that we might share in his holiness and produce the peaceful fruit of rigtheousness. (12:11)

The peaceful fruit of righteousness strives for holiness and peace with everyone, ensures that no one fails to obtain the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springs up amongst the believers, that no one is sexually immoral or unholy, trading temporary pleasures for future blessings. (12:14-17)

It is not easy to be disciplined, but there is no other way to experience the fullness of God's blessings. Imagine that living your life is akin to building a castle. Each step you take, every hard decision, every sacrifice you make for the Lord's sake is like placing another brick on the magnificent monument of your life. God wants your life to represent Him well, so we must strive to produce the most beautiful life we possibly can. This can only be done when we are disciplined.

But God is gracious, and He transforms us into the people we are to become, if we only submit to Him. He will renew our minds by the Holy Spirit. He will give us opportunities to serve Him and bring glory to His name. He will give us the desires of our heart as our will aligns with His.

I hope this episode encourages you to seek the Lord with even more passion and excitement!

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There is something exquisitely beautiful about friendship. It ought to be treasured and protected at all costs. In this episode I mentioned how I did not have many friends as a child. While that is true, I do remember my very first friend. His name was Quinn. He had blond hair like I used to and a soft nature like mine. We went to preschool together, and since he lived next to the preschool, I would watch him walk over by himself in the morning sometimes. I don't remember what games we'd play or what made him a good friend, I just remember feeling very privileged to know him. After preschool, I never saw him again, but I can still identify him as my first frind because he made such a positive impact on me. Maybe you have had a friend like that, maybe you haven't. In this episode, we're going to look at what makes for a good friend and what doesn't.

Proverbs 13:20 - "Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools suffers harm."

You need to know what makes someone wise or foolish before you choose friends.

Jesus said "Whoever hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man..." and "Whoever hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man..." (Matthew 7:24,26)

Those who follow Jesus daily, diligently, and sacrificially are wise men, and those who ignore him are the fools.

Psalm 1 promises us that if we stand on God's word rather than standing in the counsel of fools, we will surely be blessed. Our lives will be fruitful and evergreen.

Look at yourself to see if you consistenly follow the teachings of Jesus and surround yourself with others who do. Be assured that you cannot maintain bad company without it corrupting your character. You can try, but you will fail.

It is a true blessing to find friends who can be lifelong companions, who pray for you, encourage you, support you in myriad ways. Ask God to lead you to those special people who will spur you on to love and good deeds.

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Of all the crazy things that people did in the Bible, Peter volunteering to walk on water might be the craziest. I don't know exactly what he was thinking, but I don't think that thought would have even crossed my mind.

This request is physically impossible to satisfy, but in the presence of God, nothing is impossible. Even though it was Peter who asked to walk on the water, it was Jesus who extended the official invitation. He invited Peter into something impossible.

God loves to perform the impossible, and include us in it. He involved the entire nation of Israel in the "impossible" parting of the Red Sea. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego got to experience the impossible by surviving in the king's great furnace. Gideon experienced the impossible when God helped him defeat an army of 135,000 with 300 men.

God is not shy about asking us to do impossible things. Luckily, because He is with us, we only have to trust and obey what he says, and they will be done.

But He is not going to do all of the work for us, we still have our part to contribute. When you face an impossible challenge, God will downgrade it to something that is only extremely difficult. Isn't that kind of Him? But then He will give you the strength and wisdom to accomplish that difficult thing.

There are 3 principles that will guide you along so that when you encounter a difficult challenge from the Lord, you are already prepared to accomplish it.

1. You must be willing to do hard things. God is looking for volunteers. Sometimes he does choose people out of a crowd, but often he looks for those who already desire to take up a challenge, like Peter. If you are not willing, you will not get very far at all into what God calls you. Like a sailor going through Navy Seal training, it is better when you decide that doing something hard is what YOU want. It will lead you to actually accomplishing what God desires for you.

2. You have to be consistent. When you start doing the work of God, it is easy to become frusturated and discouraged and give up. But we must remember that the pain and the waiting is all worth it. You will never know what God could have done through you if you don't keep pushing, keep going, keep perservering. At the end of the day, when you look back on the trials and the disappointments, they will just be feathers in your cap, adornments of the wonderful story God has written in your life.

3. You must develop a yearning for difficult things. Peter had this yearning. He saw the opportunity to experience something incredible with Jesus and he decided to go for it. When you come across a challenge, you have two options: you can avoid it, hoping it will go away, or you can face it head on, seeing it as an opportunity to grow in your faith. Let us all develop the desire to grow in faith in Christ.

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It's not a question of if, but when. You WILL encounter people who are difficult to work with. The question is, how will you treat them?

In this episode, we will be looking at how Jesus handled difficult people. The saviour of mankind was not always happy with the people He was working with, but He always acted righteously. Even when He was flipping tables, His anger did not cause Him to sin. We, on the other hand, have anger inside of us that doesn't produce the righteousness of God (James 1:20). He never gave up on people, but we are quick to write people off. He was extremely patient, but our patience melts like snow on a hot summer day whenever we run across someone who treats disrespectfully. All of this to say, we must be intentional about putting on the character of Christ whenever we deal with difficult people.

The Holy Spirit desires to give us love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. We ought to prayerfully lift our eyes to the hills from whence our help comes and ask God to give us everything we need when we deal with those who frusturate us. When we do, we are able to act in wisdom and kindness towards others.

There are 5 specific pieces of advice I'll be sharing.

1. We must be pateint with difficult people.

2. We must love difficult people.

3. We must forgive difficult people.

4. We must be firm with difficult people.

5. We must try to maintain unity and peace at all times.

I hope that this episode gives you practical tools to help you in your next encounter with a difficult person. Remember that God loves them as much as He loves you, so you also must love them, no matter how much they bother and frusturate you. I pray that God would enlighten you to the strength that is available to you through the Holy Spirit so you may act in such a way that is pleasing to God at all times.

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Whether you are in highschool, freshly graduated, or have been out for years, it is never a bad idea to think about what you would have liked to know back in those years.

What stupid thing would you have avoided doing? Would you have had the same friends? How would you have spent those countless hours of free time?

As a young person matures into an adult, they must go through a time of great change. This change must be handled with care. Children must experience the weight of responsibility and power in order to be transformed into mature adults.

In this podcast, I would like to give you a taste of responsibility and perspective as I reveal my 5 best pieces of advice I would give to myself back in high school.

1. Think about your career.

In terms of how to provide financially for a family, it has taken me a long time to realize what was required and what I was capable of. As I have grown, I have learned that there is hardly anything stopping a young person from pursuing much of what they would like to do. If you plan on having a family, a wife, kids, a house, then you ought to put some thought into how you are going to support yourself and others.

2. Read your Bible more.

If you lack confidence, the Bible will help you find some. The Bible tells you everything you need to know about yourself, the world, and others. It will tell you about what God desires, and what traits are desirable for men to have: justice, wisdom, strength, humility. If you want to build confidence, build your knowledge of the Word of God.

3. Read interesting books.

There is much knowledge and even wisdom to be gained from books. If you have an interest about anything, there is certainly a book out there that will help you learn more about it. That is how you grow in maturity. You can learn about marriage, business, history, how to handle social situations, how to know God better. Don't let anything stop you from learning more about the things you are interested in.

4. Help you parents with a cheerful attitude.

It is God's explicit command that you obey your parents. Though you may be 16, or even 18 or 19, it is important that you recognize the very, very special role your parents play in your life, which is to help you develop and mature. They see you from a perspective of love and care that no one on earth can match, so be diligent to obey them and watch as your life prospers. It will not always be easy. It will certainly not be convenient. But the character and humility you attain through helping your parents is both irreplaceable and invaluable.

5. Be yourself.

This is a dangerous phrase if one lives without the solid foundation of the teachings of Jesus Christ, but to those who have that firm foundation, this is one of the most empowering ideas that a young person can hear. How comforting to hear that God made you intentionally, that the person you are is the person He wants you to be. Your looks, your character traits, your talents are all meant to reflect Christ in you, and that means that you can pursue many things that come naturally to you for God's glory without feeling envious or insecure about those traits you do not possess.

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Maybe when you get older. Maybe when you get a better job. Maybe when you get a girlfriend or you get married. Maybe when you buy a house and settle down and get everything that you've ever wanted. Or maybe not. Could it be that you are wasting your life right now because you're too distracted by where you want to be?

In this episode, I hope to give fresh perspective on what we call waiting seasons. We all have to wait for things, but you can wait in two ways, either wastefully or fruitfully. If you want your days to mean something, if you want the precious hours to be redeemed, then you need to learn how to wait successsfully.

God tells us many times that we are to wait on Him. That is hard. It can feel like God is slow, or He is purposefully trying to slow us down and hold us back because He wants to deny good things from us. We cannot allow ourselves to think like this. It will not end well for us.

What will end well for us is trusting in God's goodness and His timing. In this podcast we will examine the life of a man named Joseph who waited on God and saw His goodness. He had to wait 13 years, but I bet if you asked him, he'd say it was worth it. If you want God to do something special in your life, you may just have to wait a long time for it. You may have to experience some hard things. You may have to be subject to evil and oppression and unfair circumstances, but at the end of it, you will be able to say that was was meant for evil God used for the good. Trusting in God and waiting on Him is when life begins for all of us.

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If you knew the eyes of the world were on you, how would you act? While the eyes of the whole world are rarely on a single man, people are always watching you. They watch how you live and how you act, how you love and treat other people. You are a leader, whether you realize it or not. We need to come to terms with our platform and we need to lead well, otherwise people will suffer.

It can be very uncomfortable to be the leader. I know that in the past, I was not comfortable leading in any way. I felt inept to it, and was very content to sit back and let others tell me what to do. But not anymore. I have realized that God has called me to be a leader, and He calls every one of us to it.

But leadership has consequences. If you want to be great, you must give something up. In fact, you have to give away everything you have and everything that you are. You have to give your time, your talent, your attention, your money, your love, your energy, your patience, your thought, your will.

It is leadership that leads an exhausted army against an unseen enemy. It is leadership that encourages others when everything in you wants to complain about them. It is leadership that stays faithful day in and day out, not making any excuses or giving up the fight. It is leadership that wins battles, turns the tides of culture, that leads businesses and families and nations into prosperity and the fear of God. That is what we must be all about. Leadership is what makes a man a man.

In this episode, we are exploring what good leadership and poor leadership look like. We will discuss how we can grow in our leadership capabilities and exactly what leaders are called to do: to do the right thing, and to make sure the people following you are doing the right thing.

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Keep going; you have to keep going. You have to keep pushing. You have to keep fighting. The Gospel must prevail, and you have to play your part in making that happen.

Charlie Kirk's recent assassination has caused a worldwide firestorm that has touched believers everywhere. When a good man dies for the faith, others will inevitably rise up and grow in boldness and courage.

Through the example of a young man like Timothy, we see that the mission we've been given is not a small task, and it requires strong, dedicated leaders to make it happen. Leaders who will not back down when someone challenges the truth. Leaders who will not settle for less. Leaders who will lead with firm, clear direction.

As young men, we have massive potential for greatness and admirable leadership, as well as great potential for destruction and folly. We have the choice to step up or to stand down. We have the choice to be hardworking and selfless and the choice to be lazy and let others do the hard work for us.

The young man Timothy was supposed to lead the church in the truth of the Gospel, dispelling all false ideaologies that tried to find their way into the church. We have that same mission, but we may not all have the same tools to do it. Timothy was given a great gift of leadership and teaching. You may have the ability to work with your hands, lead youth, comfort the elderly, support the church. Whatever your role, you must give it all that you've got, all that God has given you.

Our lives make a difference. What you do matters. In the same way we didn't realize how much we all needed Charlie Kirk to be who he was and do what he did, we need you to be all that you can be, and do whatever the Lord has placed in your heart, whatever great thing you are capable of. If that doesn't sound exciting, I don't know what does.

Remember that others are watching. They are looking to see what you do with your faith. Will it be a living faith? Or will it be a dead faith? Choose to garnish your faith with consistent, potent, skillful actions that will lead others closer to our Lord Jesus Christ.

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"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice." - Philippians 4:4

Easier said than done, isn't it Paul? And yet, that is not only our command, it is our privilege. And it is possible!

Today we are exploring the joy that is found exclusively in the person of God. Joy is not only able to bring us feelings of great pleasure and happiness, it is also able to get us through very difficult life circumstances as we look forward to the future God has prepared for us in Heaven. Even if we never experienced another good thing in our lives here on earth, we have an eternity of goodness to look forward to in Heaven with Jesus.

Jesus gave us the example of looking past the heartaches and the trials of life when he went to the cross and endured it's shame on our behalf. The reason he was able to do this is because of the joy that was set before him, the redemption of his bride; us!

One important thing we must understand is that joy is accessible to us 24/7 as well, even in difficult circumstances. Because we know that God will never leave us nor forsake us, that means his joy is always available, too.

We must choose to accept the gift of joy that is a fruit of God's spirit. Even when life is hard, whether because of God's discipline because of our sin or because of the curse of Adam on this world, we can still continue to walk in joy and allow it to fill us up with peace and happiness.

If you want to know the joy of the Lord, you must know the Lord for yourself. Seek him in his Word, learn about his nature and his character. Find out what He wants from you and then do it. When you walk with God and obey what He says, you will experience his joy in your life.

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There are many burdens in life. There are financial burdens, burdens of sickness, relationship burdens. Another kind of burden is the guilt for wrongdoing. With other burdens, there are things you can do to bring relief to yourself. You can go out and get an extra job, you can take vitamins or see a doctor, you can have conversations and make intentional connections, but what can you do to relieve your conscience when you have done wrong? The one and only remedy for this kind of burden is forgiveness.

We cannot live a joyful, prosperous life if we have a constant cloud of guilt hanging over our heads. Guilt wears us out, shuts us down, destroys our vision for the future. Whenever I used to do something wrong, I would find myself spending a lot of time playing my sins over and over in my head, condemning myself for the wicked or stupid things I have done, and it blocked my ability to move forward or live freely in the moment.

If you have experienced this, I want you to know that there is a solution. The only thing that can set us free from the feelings of guilt and shame are the forgiveness of God. God is the one we are ultimately accountable to. He is the one with the power of judgement toward life or death, of our eternal sentencing to Hell or entrance into Heaven. The good news is that He is "gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love." (Psalm 145:8-9) He is willing to forgive every sin you've ever committed, great or small. He is willing to wipe away your feelings of guilt and shame.

To receive this forgiveness, however, you must humble yourself before God. You have to turn from the sins that were once your death sentence, and follow the God and His commands that bring life. You must throw yourself on the mercy of God and let Him turn you into a new creature. It is my prayer that you would do that today. Call out to God. Admit your sin. Accept that Jesus died to pay for your sins and accept the free gift of eternal life that He offers you. Live for Him. Follow Him. Let His forgiveness fuel your future.

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