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Real Conversations with Real People about Real Life!
Episodes
Sep 25, 2023
Sep 25, 2023
27 min
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!
Aug 21, 2023
Aug 21, 2023
34 min
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.
Aug 11, 2023
Aug 11, 2023
20 min
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
Aug 4, 2023
Aug 4, 2023
29 min
Contact David For Comments or Questions
If you would like to have the "One Another Commands" PDF
please send me an email requesting one.
Jul 28, 2023
Jul 28, 2023
37 min
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.
Jul 21, 2023
Jul 21, 2023
27 min
CONTACT DAVID FOR COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS
davidhiggtx@gmail.com
What’s Love got to do with it?
- What’s Love got to do with learning to navigate life on this side of the Cross?
- I’m going to say it has EVERYTHING to do with it.
- [Vocabularies & Dictionaries Alert!] When we talk about Love what are we talking about?
- Here's a description of the Love we're talking about (Agape) = Others-Centered, Self-Giving, Radically Forgiving, Co-Suffering, All Encompassing Love.
- This kind of Love (Agape) reflects the very essence of God’s nature, not an attribute like His Omnipresence or Faithfulness.
- Agape’ is at the center of God’s involvement with His Creation and always has been (Agape changed everything)
- God is Love, Light, Life, and is the source of all three.
- This kind of Love is the central expression of what it means to live our Life in Christ. (Others will know you are my disciples...)
- God’s Love being expressed in and through us, is what it means to live the Christian life.
- HIS LOVE IS THE FUEL THAT ANIMATES OUR LIFE IN CHRIST!
- We are never in or out of Christ based on our expressions of Love, or lack of it. We will, however, find ourselves acting in harmony with His nature or not.
- Where does the love we see expressed in the world come from? Parent to child. Brother to sister. Man to woman. Friend to friend.
- If God IS Love, wouldn’t it follow that all expressions of love, imperfect and incomplete though they may be, must come from Him? If not, what is the other source of Love in the world?
- Living the Christian Life is only made possible by the presence of the HS within us. Not by our commitment, determination, activity, abilities, religious training, or our good intentions.
- We can’t live the Christian Life in our own capacity; HE must live His life in us. We cooperate with Him like the branch does with the vine. This is a mystery, but it defines what we call the Branch & Vine Paradigm.
- If I hope to navigate life on this side of the Cross successfully, I must have a growing understanding of two things: My True Identity (who I truly am in Christ) and My Source of Life (I’m the branch and He is the Vine).
- He is the Vine, and we are the branches. The Vine has Life. The branch has no life in itself and only receives life from the Vine. Fruit is produced by the Vine through the branch.
- I must connect with the reality of God’s complete and absolute love for me and its implications, or I will always be dependent on my latest performance, and the opinions of others as a source of significance or acceptance.
Jul 14, 2023
Jul 14, 2023
25 min
Contact David for Questions or Comments:
There are no notes for the Bonus Episodes
Jul 7, 2023
Jul 7, 2023
22 min
Contact David for Comments and Suggestions
There are no notes for the Bonus Episodes
Jun 30, 2023
Jun 26, 2023