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Episodes
Sunday Dec 03, 2023
Friday Nov 17, 2023
Friday Nov 17, 2023
Contact David for any questions or comments-
davidhiggtx@gmail.com
How often should I pray?
- What is prayer anyway? Communicating with God. Talking & listening. Dialogue with God.
- We could be praying all the time… Back Burner Prayer
- Praying at all times in the Spirit
- Praying without ceasing. How can you be always in a place of prayer?
- There is a subjective element in prayer.
- We need to be getting off the performance hamster wheel and learning to get up in the morning and just being ourselves! Go be you!
- If we’re going to successfully navigate life on this side of the cross, we need to learn to pray at all times in the Spirit.
Sunday Oct 22, 2023
Sunday Oct 22, 2023
Contact David for any comments and questions:
Let’s Talk About Sin-
- Performance-based expectations and Paradigms
- What does it mean to be Holy? It has nothing to do with not sinning.
- Ontology vs Experience
- Earning the Sin Tracker merit badge by keeping track of my sin…and others too.
- What is sin? Any Motive, Attitude, or Action that is not an expression of our Relational Trust in God is a sin. (Rom 14:23)
- Why do Christians still sin? We Christians still find ourselves sinning because we are still human. It is the activity of the Flesh in our lives.
- If we’re going to navigate life on this side of the cross successfully, we need to learn that God has completely dealt with the “sin issue” in my life and the life of every other human.
Wednesday Oct 11, 2023
Wednesday Oct 11, 2023
Contact David for Questions or Comments-
How Forgiven Am I?
- When did God forgive me?
- When Jesus completed His work through His death, burial, and resurrection.
- How thorough is it?
- You’re either completely forgiven or not at all. (1 Cor 5)
- You were forgiven once-for-all… Hebrews
- What is it that makes forgiveness possible?
- The loving father’s heart of God!
- What does forgiving others look like?
- It’s the choice of a heart that is willing to let go or the “right” to be offended and to hold something over someone else’s head.
- What about 1 John 1:9 and confessing?
- Is it possible that we might have missed confessing a sin along the way?
- Absolutely!
- It's not only possible, it's certain.
- If confession is necessary for every sin to be forgiven and we miss any…we’re in trouble.
- If we’re going to navigate life on this side of the cross successfully, we need to learn how completely and fully forgiven we are in Christ and then learn to pass that gift on to others!
Monday Oct 02, 2023
Monday Oct 02, 2023
Contact David for any comments or questions-
What role does The Law of Moses play in a
Christian’s day-to-day life?
- None!
- There is no place for a direct practical application of the Law of Moses to the daily life of a Christian. Remember, it's an all-or-nothing proposition. We don't get to pick and choose which laws we want to obey if we want to live under the Law of Moses.
- Are there things we can learn from the Law? Yes, many things. But our practical daily lives, nor our ongoing New Covenant relationship with God, are governed by the Law of Moses.
- To whom was The Law of Moses given? The Children of Israel.
- We Gentiles were never given access to nor included in the giving or receiving of the Law. It was not meant for any group other than Israel.
- (Eph. 2:11-22)
- At one time, you were:
- Called the Uncircumcision
- separated from God
- alienated from the Commonwealth of Israel
- strangers to the covenants of promise
- having no hope and without God in the world.
- But now, in Christ Jesus:
- You who were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
- He Himself is our peace,
- He has made the two of us [Jew & Gentile] both one and has broken down in His flesh the dividing wall of hostility
- By abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances,
- So that He might create for Himself one new man in place of the two, thereby making peace.
- And might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.
- For the first several decades of the Church’s history, the majority of Christians were Jews who were raised under The Law of Moses, and it was intricately involved in their culture.
- The Hebrew Scripture was the only Bible the Primitive Church had, and they mostly used the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures). Greek was the common trade language and was familiar to most people.
- The Hebrew Scriptures are a record of God calling to Himself a people (Israel) through whom He would bring the Son of redemption (Jesus) into the world for the benefit of all peoples.
- The New Covenant Scriptures were written over several decades as the Church grew. They were passed around and began developing a wide range of acceptance, but were not completely codified for several hundred years.
- The Hebrew Scriptures were embraced as authoritative by the first-century believers, most of whom for the first few decades, were Jewish, and had been raised with them as their Bible.
- It’s interesting, however, that the new Gentile Christians were never told or encouraged to adopt the detailed religious structure and practice laid out in the Old Covenant Scriptures, except by the Judaizers which Paul strongly opposed in his letter to the Galatian churches.
- If The Law of Moses is not a guide for how I should live my day-to-day life, what will be? (and let’s be clear about this question, NO ONE LIVES THEIR LIVES WITH THE LAW OF MOSES AS A DAY-TO-DAY GUIDE. Because it requires sacrifices offered in a specific way at a specific place and that can’t be accomplished.
- Jesus points us toward living a life that is fueled by Love and guided by the Spirit.
- If we’re going to successfully navigate life on this side of the cross, we need to learn to live lives fueled by Love and guided by the Spirit.
Monday Sep 25, 2023
Monday Sep 25, 2023
You can reach David for comments or questions here:
davidhiggtx@gmail.com
What about Checklists?
(10 things I must do each day/week etc.)
- Don’t I need to keep track of how I’m doing?
- Regularly looking at your life to see how God’s Spirit is producing His fruit in you would be a better use of your time. (Galatians 5)
- Regularly engaging with some friends who are also on a Journey with Jesus and getting input from them about the “Flavor” your life is expressing is also a good place to start.
- How else do I measure my Spiritual Growth…or should I?
- Don’t worry about your Spiritual Growth…focus your heart on getting to know and love Jesus more.
- Do this with a group of friends and keep your heart focused on Jesus and His Love for you and others.
- Live from that place and Spiritual Growth will take care of itself.
- Living in a comparison driven & competitive Religious Culture
- Evaluating your Spiritual Life by comparison to others is a natural and culturally motivated activity
- The first Disciples of Jesus did the same thing…
- It will not be any more beneficial to you than it was for them.
- Comparing ourselves among ourselves is specifically discouraged in the NT (2 Cor. 10:12)
- What is Fruitfulness?
- As I grow in my understanding of what it means to live my life in Christ (Abide), and let His Life, Light, and love be my source for life, the Fruit of the Holy Spirit will be produced in me by Him.
- He produces His fruit…I cooperate with Him.
- He’s the Vine…I’m the branch!
- CHECKLISTS ARE FOR ORGANIZATION, NOT COMPARISON!
- Checklists are good for helping us get organized and get tasks accomplished
- Our walk with God is a journey…not a task.
- We need to learn how to live without the ‘threat’ of disappointing God and find freedom in being the person Christ made us to be.
- You are completely and fully loved, accepted, and forgiven by God…
- You always have been…
- You always will be…
- Nothing anyone says or does will ever change that truth
- So…focus on learning to get up every morning and just GO BE YOU!
Monday Aug 21, 2023
Monday Aug 21, 2023
CONTACT DAVID FOR COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS:
- People who were “Disciples of Jesus” were first called Christians at Antioch. The term meant “Little Christs” or “Little Messiahs” (Christ means Anointed One/Messiah) Originally intended as a slur, it was eventually embraced as a badge of honor by the People of the Way.
- WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO REALLY BE A CHRISTIAN?
- It’s NOT about:
- cleaning up your act so you’ll be acceptable to God.
- “Finding Religion”
- Turning your life around or turning over a new leaf
- Joining a Church or religious group.
- Reading the Bible and praying regularly
- Embracing and/or practicing Spiritual Disciplines
- Becoming someone who prayed a prayer, jumped through some religious hoops, and checked off items on a spiritual to-do-list.
- Not doing bad stuff anymore and starting to do good stuff
- It IS about becoming a person whose life has been and is being, transformed by God’s Holy Spirit who lives within you.
- It IS about living a life that looks more and more like Jesus, as we learn to cooperate with Him living His Life through us.
- It IS about a few things that you believe AND about how you live your life toward others and in this world.
- It IS about Beliefs AND Behavior!
- HOW DOES ONE BECOME A BELIEVER IN / FOLLOWER OF JESUS? (Christian)
- Repent- Change your mind
- About God (Who is He and what is He up to?)
- About yourself
- About your need for a Savior
- About your inability to be your own Savior
- Believe (trust in) the Good News (Gospel)- The Gospel declares what God HAS done:
- God has broken down any barriers between you and Him,
- He has completely and fully forgiven you thru what Jesus accomplished on your behalf.
- Has made peace between Himself and you.
- He has made His Love, His Light, and His Life available to you.
- Will you receive this Gift?
- Receive Him as Lord (King) & Savior (Source). This means giving yourself to a journey of learning to live life every day with Jesus as your King & Source of Life…This is becoming a Disciple of Jesus.
- Living life in Christ is an Incarnational journey. It’s about learning to allow Jesus, by the presence of the Holy Spirit, to live His Life in & through you. It’s not about you, using your own abilities and trying your best to live like Him.
- HOW DO YOU KNOW YOU ARE A CHRISTIAN? Great Question! The simple answer is that we know we are Christians by Faith (Relational Trust in a person).
- His Spirit convinces our spirit that we are His children. (Romans 8:16)
- Living life in Christ is a miracle and a mystery.
- BUT I STILL MESS UP AND SIN!
- Living life in Christ always involves OJT! (on-the-job training) in much the same way that being a human involves OJT. (age appropriate)
- Living Life in Christ means learning to live in harmony with our growing understanding of who God is, what He has done for us, in us, and what He can do through us.
- LIVING THE CHRISTIAN LIFE IS NOT A “THING THAT YOU DO.” IT’S A COOPERATIVE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN YOU AND YOUR CREATOR. IT’S A JOURNEY IN WHICH YOU LEARN TO RECEIVE HIS LIFE, LIGHT, AND LOVE IN THE SAME WAY THAT THE BRANCH RECEIVES ITS LIFE FROM THE VINE.
Friday Aug 11, 2023
Friday Aug 11, 2023
CONTACT DAVID FOR COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS:
There are no notes for this Recap. Please send me an email for the PDFs on
1 Cor 13 and The One Another Commands
Friday Aug 04, 2023
Friday Aug 04, 2023
Contact David For Comments or Questions
If you would like to have the "One Another Commands" PDF
please send me an email requesting one.
Friday Jul 28, 2023
Friday Jul 28, 2023
CONTACT DAVID FOR ANY COMMENTS OR QUESTIONS:
I've created a PDF of the notes on this episode dealing with 1 Corinthians 13.
If you would like these notes, please send me an email requesting them.