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142 – Sometimes we need to stop learning about God
Several years ago, I knew a fellow who was always studying the Bible. He was always trying to learn more about God. He’d look up every little detail about whatever topic he was researching. He knew a lot about God. He could always quote verses from the Bible that seemed appropriate for almost any situation.
But all this knowledge about God was mostly in his head. Very little of it had made it into his heart. And even less had seeped out into his daily life in the way he treated others or how he saw himself.
He didn’t really feel God’s love for him. Oh, he could talk about the fact that God loved him but he didn’t feel it. And when he told others that God loved them, it usually came across as just empty words.
I don’t know if you’ve ever felt this way, but I have.
You know enough about God already
It's more important to know God, to feel God's presence and love in your life.
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:9, 10 that we can't know God through the material senses. It is only through a revelation of the Spirit.
The only way to really know God is by God revealing Himself to us.
A Sunday School teacher in the church I grew up in said, "God doesn't talk to us today like He did to the people in the Bible. We have the Bible and that's all we need."
I heartily disagree and actually did a previous episode of this podcast on this topic: Episode 39 Does God Still Talk to Us Today?
Why don't we hear God's voice?
We're distracted with and absorbed in our own little worlds, all our worries and fears, etc.
So how do we get to know God and not just learn more about God?
In getting to know God, we need to get out of our human intellectualism and reside more in the Spirit. Studying the Bible is important, don’t get me wrong. But we need to make sure our Bible study is guided by the Holy Spirit and not the human intellect.
Sometimes you need to close your Bible
Close your Bible. Think about one aspect of God's nature, like love or forgiveness, wisdom or mercy. Now practice that in your daily life and you will get to know God better. You will experience God's presence in your life.
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Bible references in this week's episode. Check them out at thebiblespeakstoyou.com/142.
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James Early, the Jesus Mindset Coach, is a Bible teacher, speaker, and podcaster. His focus is on getting back to the original Christianity of Jesus by embracing the mindset of Christ in daily life.
141 – What would spiritual rebirth look like in your church?
Our churches are facing some pretty challenging times. We need a more spiritual approach to church, but in our individual churches as well as all of Christianity.
In this week's episode, I talk about how the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus about the need to be born again, can apply, not just to us as individuals, but also collectively to our churches.
There needs to be a spiritual rebirth taking place in our churches.
Here are some questions I explore in this week's episode:
Mentions:
Episode 106: Markus Watson and the Future of the Church
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Bible references in this week's episode. Check them out at thebiblespeakstoyou.com/141.
If you have questions or comments please contact me.
Subscribe to the podcast
___________________________________________
Text me your questions or comments.
Support the show
If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
__________________
James Early, the Jesus Mindset Coach, is a Bible teacher, speaker, and podcaster. His focus is on getting back to the original Christianity of Jesus by embracing the mindset of Christ in daily life.
140 – Is it really possible to leave all for Christ?
It's easy to say the words, but it's not so easy to actually let go of all our personal opinions, perceptions and preconceptions.
But that's what Jesus encourages us to do.
Does that mean we're supposed to sell all our worldly goods, give it all to the poor, live on the streets or in a cave, depend on charity, or get our money from a fish’s mouth?
No!
Jesus only told one person to sell everything and give the proceeds to the poor. And even if you did that, it doesn't automatically make you more spiritual and obedient to Jesus.
What does it mean to leave all for Christ?
As always Jesus gives us the answer. And it’s more the way he lived his life, and not just the words he said.
How can we follow his example?
Let’s start just with the way he loved people.
Are we moved with compassion and love to the degree he was when he saw the multitudes? Or do we judge people by all the outward appearances and separate them into us and them categories?
I am pretty sure there were people in those crowds, which Jesus looked on with compassion, who were not necessarily the most outstanding members of society. We might not want to associate with some of the people Jesus loved so freely. And there some of those folks we might not want to show up in our churches.
But Jesus saw the worth and dignity of everyone he came in contact with, regardless of their social status or how much of a saint or sinner they were.
Take an honest look at yourself. What is it in your heart that hasn’t yielded to Christ?
Why do we hold onto these things? Because we think they define us. But they don’t. They just describe something that happened to us.
Why should we leave all for Christ? Because in the process we discover our relationship, our oneness, with God and Christ.
Ultimately, to leave all for Christ is to let go of everything you identify with that is not part of how God originally made you in His image and likeness.
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Bible references in this week's episode: thebiblespeakstoyou.com/135.
Questions or comments: Please contact me.
Subscribe to the podcast
James Early, the Jesus Mindset Coach, is a Bible teacher, speaker, and podcaster. He conducts Bible workshops online and in person. His focus is on getting back to the original Christianity of Jesus by embracing the mindset of Christ in daily life.Text me your questions or comments.
Support the show
If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
__________________
James Early, the Jesus Mindset Coach, is a Bible teacher, speaker, and podcaster. His focus is on getting back to the original Christianity of Jesus by embracing the mindset of Christ in daily life.
139 – How often do you actually bless the people in your life?
And what about loving and blessing your enemies?
The real question is "Why should we bless our enemies and how do we do it?"
My guest this week, Pierre Pradervand, talks about how he discovered the power of blessing everyone he meets. It all started when someone undermined him at work. At first Pierre was really mad and full of resentment.
But he was reminded of Jesus's command to love and bless our enemies. As he did this, he found a freedom from hatred.
Then he started blessing everyone he passed on the street, the people on the bus and at the grocery store. It has changed his life.
Pierre now helps others learn to love and bless in this way.
His book, The Gentle Art of Blessing, shares more of his story and many examples of his own and people he has helped.
Here are some of the questions and topics we talked about:
Here are a couple of quotes:
“Blessing is a way of sending unconditional love, peace, healing, goodness to a person or a situation, or simply seeing them bathe in the love.”
“Blessing is not something we do to attract good into our life; that would be attempting to manipulate the universe. However, the result will be that you will find more and more harmony pouring into your life. You will find greater peace of mind, greater poise.”
Bible references in this week's episode. Check them out at thebiblespeakstoyou.com/139.
If you have questions or comments please contact me.
Subscribe to the podcast
James Early, the Jesus Mindset Coach, is a Bible teacher, speaker, and podcaster. He conducts Bible workshops online and in person. His focus is on getting back to the original Christianity of Jesus by embracing the mindset of Christ in daily life. Contact him here.Text me your questions or comments.
Support the show
If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
__________________
James Early, the Jesus Mindset Coach, is a Bible teacher, speaker, and podcaster. His focus is on getting back to the original Christianity of Jesus by embracing the mindset of Christ in daily life.
138 – What do you do when you feel unappreciated?
Have you ever felt your talents and abilities were underutilized on a project you were working on? People just don’t seem to appreciate how much you have to offer at work, at church, or wherever? You just don’t get the recognition, or the leadership opportunities you deserve?
I have felt that way many times over the years. And along with those feelings would come the little voice in my head, “If I were in charge, I would do things differently”, or “I could do such a much better job than they are.”
I really don't feel that way anymore. But I'm reminded of them every time I read the story of Absalom, one of King David's sons.
This week's episode explores how Absalom approached these feelings:
Unfortunately Absalom met an untimely death. All his plotting and planning got him nowhere in the long run. His egotism and self-will were actually part of his downfall, even though that's what he thought would get him what he wanted.
Another "Son of David"
We have a better example of how to live our lives from another one of David's sons, and I don't mean Solomon. He had his problems as well.
I mean THE Son of David, Christ Jesus.
Jesus took the exact opposite approach from Absalom in the way he lived his life
If you’re ever in a situation where you’re seeking a position of authority or leadership, whether at work or at church, or you’re impelled to seek public office on a local, state, or national level, it's important to examine your motives.
It’s always easier to see when someone else is acting like Absalom. It’s not always easy to see when we have some of those motives mixed in with our genuine motives of wanting to do something to help people.
When you feel unappreciated, undervalued, and underutilized and know you could do a better job than what’s going on, the question I have for you is: Which son of David will you follow, Absalom or Jesus?
Bible references in this week's episode. Check them out at thebiblespeakstoyou.com/138.
If you have questions or comments please contact me.
Download the prayer project: 22 Ways to Pray with the Mindset of Jesus in 2022
Subscribe to the podcast
James Early, the Jesus Mindset Coach, is a Bible teacher, speaker, and podcaster. He conducts Bible workshops online and in person. His focus is on getting back to the original Christianity of Jesus by embracing the mindset of Christ in daily life. Contact him here.Text me your questions or comments.
Support the show
If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
__________________
James Early, the Jesus Mindset Coach, is a Bible teacher, speaker, and podcaster. His focus is on getting back to the original Christianity of Jesus by embracing the mindset of Christ in daily life.
137 – What if you had lived during the time of Jesus and heard him preach?
Would you have believed what he said and followed him? Would you have recognized that he was the Messiah?
What if Jesus came to your house for dinner? What would you ask him? What would he ask you?
What would he tell you was the most important thing to do in life?
This episode is all about what Jesus would say to do first.
Jesus says it pretty succinctly in the Sermon on the Mount: "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness." (Matthew 6:33)
Unfortunately, we’ve heard this phrase so many times that it has become a spiritual sound bite, something familiar that rolls too easily off the tongue. We know the words oh so well.
But once again, imagine you and I are in that crowd listening to Jesus say these words for the first time. He’s talking about the very things you’re worried about. You feel like he understands what you’re dealing with and the struggles you’re facing.
In this week's episode, I talk about several examples in the Bible of people who didn't quite have the kingdom of God at the top of their list.
So, we're supposed to seek God's kingdom first, but what does that really mean? How do we do it.
I share some concrete examples of how you can search for and find the kingdom of God in your daily life.
The way to seek and discover the kingdom of God is to do God’s will. That’s what opens our eyes to it.
How on earth are we supposed to know what God’s will is? A good place to start is taking to heart everything Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount. I keep coming back to this, have you noticed.
When you put Jesus’s teachings from that sermon into practice in your daily life, you are doing God’s will.
When you do God’s will, this is the kingdom of God in action and is the fulfillment of the Lord’s Prayer, "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. " (Matthew 6:10)
This is Jesus’s hope and prayer for us all.
And you are not only seeking the kingdom of God and His righteousness as your first priority, but you will discover and experience them as well in your daily life.
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Bible references in this week's episode. Check them out at thebiblespeakstoyou.com/137.
If you have questions or comments please contact me.
Download the prayer project: 22 Ways to Pray with the Mindset of Jesus in 2022
Subscribe to the podcast
James Early, the Jesus Mindset Coach, is a Bible teacher, speaker, and podcaster. He conducts Bible workshops online and in person. His focus is on getting back to the original Christianity of Jesus by embracing the mindset of Christ in daily life. Contact him here.
Text me your questions or comments.
Support the show
If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
__________________
James Early, the Jesus Mindset Coach, is a Bible teacher, speaker, and podcaster. His focus is on getting back to the original Christianity of Jesus by embracing the mindset of Christ in daily life.
How can we cultivate a mindset like Jesus?
When I was a kid, I loved to plant things in the garden. At a very early age, my mom helped me know the difference between the plants I was trying to grow and the weeds that seemed to grow without any help from me.
One day when I lost my temper and said some things I shouldn’t have, my mother said to me, “James, your thinking is like a garden. Every time you say something loving, you are planting beautiful flowers in your thinking. Every time you say something mean or angry, you are planting weeds in your thinking.
“And that’s what other people will see in you. What do you want to plant in your thinking, flowers or weeds?”
Well, I wanted to plant beautiful flowers in my thinking.
I got the message and that simple little parable has come back to me many times over the years. And it took years for me to really learn this lesson, and I still have to work on it sometimes.
This week's episode is about the spiritual cultivation of godlike thoughts in our hearts and minds. And we'll use some gardening metaphors from the Bible:
What were some of the "spiritual plants" Jesus grew in his thinking? Here are just a few:
These are the spiritual seeds we need to plant in our thinking.
Because we have the mind of Christ, we have these same spiritual resources that Jesus did.
We need to pray. We need our private time with God. We need to cultivate our relationship with the Father. Just as Jesus did.
We discover that we can uproot any ungodlike thoughts from our hearts and minds, our mental gardens, just as Jesus did.
And what happens next? We get off the mountaintop. We get out of our prayer chairs. We go to the people who need to feel loved. And we love them. This is the mindset of Jesus.
And just like my mom said, they will see the flowers you have planted and cultivated in your spiritual garden.
__________________
Bible references in this week's episode. Check them out at thebiblespeakstoyou.com/136.
If you have questions or comments please contact me.
Download the prayer project: 22 Ways to Pray with the Mindset of Jesus in 2022
Subscribe to the podcast
James Early, the Jesus Mindset Coach, is a Bible teacher, speaker, and podcaster. He conducts Bible workshops online and in person. His focus is on getting back to the original Christianity of Jesus by embracing the mindset of Christ in daily life. Contact him here.Text me your questions or comments.
Support the show
If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
__________________
James Early, the Jesus Mindset Coach, is a Bible teacher, speaker, and podcaster. His focus is on getting back to the original Christianity of Jesus by embracing the mindset of Christ in daily life.
135 – Did you know that your past does not define you? Only God does.
But don't you know someone who does define themselves by their past?
I have good friend who does. He still thinks of himself as mixture of being a victim of his father's emotional abuse and the recipient of his mother's tender love.
Most health care and well-being professionals would agree that we're a mixture of the good and bad influences from our past and that they define who we are today.
But we are so much more than our past. In fact, from a spiritual perspective, your past does not define who you are at all. It may influence how you think and act, but is does not define you.
Only God does that.
God set the record straight for all time the way He originally created us in His image and likeness. This is who we really are. This is how God defines us.
So the question is, if we are the image and likeness of God, who and what is God? Because, how you define yourself depends largely on how you define God.
But it eventually comes down to how God "defines" Himself. Check out this previous episode, #51, How Does God See Himself?
What God is and how He sees Himself defines who you are.
There are lots of examples in the Bible of people who did not define themselves by their past and some who did. In this week's episode I talk about:
Jesus focused on what was true in the kingdom of heaven. His vision was so clear, he could see past the society’s definition of who people were based on their past. He saw how people were defined in heaven: sinless, whole, unfallen from grace, and free.
Is it possible for you and me to see ourselves in this light as well? Yes of course it is. But it requires daily discipline of our thinking and actions to be more Christlike.
You cannot bring into the kingdom of heaven any definition of yourself which is not in agreement with God’s original definition of you, in other words, the image and likeness of God.
The more we can acknowledge and accept God’s definition of us as His image and likeness, the more we will begin to define ourselves that way and let nothing less than God define who we are.
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Bible references in this week's episode. Check them out at thebiblespeakstoyou.com/135.
If you have questions or comments please contact me.
Download the prayer project: 22 Ways to Pray with the Mindset of Jesus in 2022
Subscribe to the podcast
James Early, the Jesus Mindset Coach, is a Bible teacher, speaker, and podcaster. He conducts Bible workshops online and in person. His focus is on getting back to the original Christianity of Jesus by embracing the mindset of Christ in daily life. Contact him here.Text me your questions or comments.
Support the show
If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
__________________
James Early, the Jesus Mindset Coach, is a Bible teacher, speaker, and podcaster. His focus is on getting back to the original Christianity of Jesus by embracing the mindset of Christ in daily life.
134 – What can we learn from moms in the Bible?
This week I interview my friend, Pam Fields, host of The Mom Next Door, Stories of Faith Podcast.
Mother's Day is this weekend and it was great to chat with Pam about lots of the moms in the Bible and the lessons we can learn from them.
Here are the Bible mothers we talked about:
Pam brings a mother's perspective to all these stories. What were these moms thinking?
What prayers and songs did Jochebed sing and say over baby Moses? How did she teach her other two children, Arron and Miriam, to be quiet and not tell their friends they had a baby brother. How did it feel to put him in the basket?
How did God prepare Sarah for motherhood at such a late time in her life?
How did Hagar cope being all alone and being banished? Have you ever felt ostracized from a group or friends or family? What can we learn from Hagar?
Hannah, who was unable to have children, was jealous of Peninnah, who had children. What can we learn from the way she prayed when we compare ourselves to others and we don't have what we want?
What did Ruth see in Naomi's mothering that made her want to follow her back to Israel? How did Naomi feel when her husband and both sons died?
What influence did the mothers of David, Daniel, Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego have on their sons? How were they taught to have such a strong faith? How can we follow that example with our own children?
If Elizabeth had been 20 years old when she had John the Baptist, would she have had the wisdom and life lessons of faith and trusting God to help raise John to fulfill his purpose to announce the Messiah's coming and prepare the people for it?
And Mary! How would you do if you literally had the perfect child to raise. Perhaps we should see all our children as "the baby Jesus" and treat them with the same love and reverence Mary had for Jesus.
These are just a few of the ideas we talked about. You get the idea.
Bible references in this week's episode. Check them out at thebiblespeakstoyou.com/134.
If you have questions or comments please contact me.
Download the prayer project: 22 Ways to Pray with the Mindset of Jesus in 2022
Subscribe to the podcast
James Early, the Jesus Mindset Coach, is a Bible teacher, speaker, and podcaster. He conducts Bible workshops online and in person. His focus is on getting back to the original Christianity of Jesus by embracing the mindset of Christ in daily life. Contact him here.
Pam in a wife, mother of nine and grandmother of four. She's always had a heart for encouraging moms in their walk with God and their mothering journey . Check out her website, TendingFields.net.
Text me your questions or comments.
Support the show
If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
__________________
James Early, the Jesus Mindset Coach, is a Bible teacher, speaker, and podcaster. His focus is on getting back to the original Christianity of Jesus by embracing the mindset of Christ in daily life.
133 – Why does the Bible say we should fear God?
There are lots of places in the Bible where we're told we should fear God. And sometimes, God actually says, "Fear Me."
But what does it really mean to fear God? Are we actually supposed to be afraid of Him?
In this week's episode, I explore several of the different Hebrew and Greek words for "fear." All these words have slightly different meanings and some of them have double meanings of being afraid AND honor or reverence and awe.
Sometimes the same word for "fear" can have a different meaning. The way you know which one it is is the context.
Just like the word "right" can mean "correct" but it can also be the opposite of left, as in which direction to go. The word left also has another connotation, to be left behind or remain.
We know the meaning because of the context, even though the word is spelled the same way.
When an angel tells Zacharias or Mary Magdalene, "Fear not" it means not to be afraid. But when the Bible says to fear God, it means to honor and reverence Him.
How do we know? Look at Jesus. He is always the best example of how we should think and act.
Was Jesus afraid of God? No, of course not.
He had a deep, reverent, humble, loving relationship with God.
Jesus expected us to follow his example. So, that means that we can embrace his mindset in his relationship with God.
It’s our privilege to honor, adore, revere, and love God. And never be afraid of Him.
There are lots of Bible references in this week's episode. Check them out at thebiblespeakstoyou.com/133.
If you have questions or comments about this episode, please contact me. I'd love to hear from you.
___________________
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22 Ways to Pray with the Mindset of Jesus in 2022
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James Early, the Jesus Mindset Coach, is a Bible teacher, speaker, and podcaster. He conducts Bible workshops online and in person. His focus is on getting back to the original Christianity of Jesus by embracing the mindset of Christ in daily life. Contact him here.Text me your questions or comments.
Support the show
If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
__________________
James Early, the Jesus Mindset Coach, is a Bible teacher, speaker, and podcaster. His focus is on getting back to the original Christianity of Jesus by embracing the mindset of Christ in daily life.
From the publisher's feed
Have you ever poured out your heart, almost begging God to solve a problem, but it doesn’t feel like your prayer is ever answered? You wonder if there’s a better way to pray you don’t know about.…
Each week The Bible Speaks to You Podcast helps you rediscover the original Christianity of Jesus. Host James Early, Bible teacher and speaker, and an occasional guest dig deep into how to think, pray, and love like Jesus. And how to experience more of Jesus’s promise that “the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

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