Utah's Hope

The Bible’s somewhere under the mail. Nobody prayed before dinner. And your attempt at family devotions lasted roughly three Tuesdays. So how do you build faith at home when your family feels decidedly un-spiritual? Author and researcher Don Everts joins Dave and Ann Wilson on FamilyLife Today with surprising research on what makes faith grow—and some good news for imperfect families.

Show Notes and Resources

• Vibrant Conversation Deck.
• Weekend to Remember.

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Understand how to demonstrate the life of Christ by reaching out to meet somebody else's need.

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Topic:

Sherri ask Brant, through the lens of "The Men We Need" how do we raise young men who actively protect others, especially women. 

Quotes:

"The bar is too low if all we're asking of young men is, 'Don't participate.'" 

"You have to look at women differently than the culture does." 

"Not just don't participate in bad behavior, but if you see someone that is being taken advantage of, you step in." 

"The lesson is simple. You can tell them the truth about your role, but then they need to watch you do it." 

"I'm not going to let the culture get its claws into these forming minds." 
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Theologian Dorothy Sayers once wrote, “Work is not primarily a thing one does to live, but the thing one lives to do.”

That challenges the way many of us think about our jobs. We often see work primarily as a way to earn a paycheck, provide for our families, or make it to retirement. But Scripture gives us a much bigger vision.

From the first pages of the Bible to the last, Scripture does not present work as a necessary evil. It is woven into what it means to bear God's image. And whether our work is paid or unpaid, public or unnoticed, Scripture invites us to offer it to God as an act of worship.

Sometimes we speak about work as though it were a consequence of the fall. But work existed before sin ever entered the world. Genesis 2:15 says, “The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.”

Adam was given meaningful responsibility in a world God repeatedly called good. Work was part of humanity’s original purpose.

What changed after the fall was not the existence of work but our experience of it. Genesis 3 describes thorns and thistles, painful toil, and the frustration that would now accompany human labor. Work remained good, but it became difficult.

We still experience those thorns today: projects that fail, difficult coworkers, exhaustion, inefficiency, layoffs, broken systems, and days when our efforts seem to produce very little fruit.

Yet Scripture’s story does not end there. Redemption reaches every part of our lives, including how we understand and practice our work.

And the Bible’s final picture is not one of eternal inactivity. Revelation 22 says that God’s servants will serve Him and “reign forever and ever.” The world to come is marked by meaningful service under the rule of Christ.

Work was good in the beginning, and meaningful service remains part of the future God is preparing for His people.

One of Scripture’s most striking pictures of work appears in Exodus 31. When God commands Israel to build the tabernacle, He chooses a man named Bezalel for the task. God says: 

“I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship.” - Exodus 31:3

That is remarkable. The first person Scripture explicitly describes as being “filled” with the Spirit of God is not being equipped to preach a sermon or lead an army. He is being equipped to create.

Bezalel would work with gold, silver, bronze, stone, wood, and fabric. His craftsmanship mattered because God Himself had entrusted that work to him. That should expand the way we think about serving God.

Faithfulness is not limited to what happens inside a church building. A teacher grading papers, an accountant reviewing numbers, a carpenter building a home, a parent caring for children, or a volunteer serving meals can all honor God through faithful work.

God cares not only that work gets done, but also how it gets done.

Paul makes this explicit in Colossians 3:23–24: 

“Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men…You are serving the Lord Christ.”

Notice the breadth of those words: “Whatever you do.” That means no tasks are insignificant just because they seem ordinary. The spreadsheet matters. The dishes matter. The phone call matters. The diaper change matters. The meeting matters. The quiet act of caring for an aging parent matters.

Not because every task is glamorous, but because we can offer every task to Christ. That changes our motivation.

We no longer have to work primarily for applause, recognition, promotion, or comparison. Excellence can become an act of love rather than a strategy for proving our worth.

Our value does not rise and fall with our job title. Our identity is secure in Christ. That freedom allows us

Today, on A NEW BEGINNING, we feature a candid discussion with Pastor Chuck Smith, who went to be with the Lord in October of 2013.

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We were made for connection, but relationships don’t always come easy. In today’s conversation, Debra Fileta breaks down the “seasons” (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter) that relationships naturally go through. She provides practical tools and encouragement to help us tend to our relationships well, ultimately guiding us to follow Christ’s example of love first.

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John Fuller and Dr. Danny Huerta hear from authors Amber Lia and Wendy Speake to discussing replacing reactive, knee-jerk parenting responses with thoughtful, biblically grounded scripts—covering how to set consequences ahead of time, self-regulate in heated moments, and keep connection intact while enforcing boundaries.

Parenting Scripts

7 Traits of Effective Parenting Assessment

Say This, Not That: Smart Parenting Tips for Misbehavior (Digital Download)