Life Journey Church Podcast

One of the greatest lies of the Enemy and Religion is that, as a believer in Jesus, you are still wicked, sinful, vile, dirty, and even evil at the core. Just recently a prominent Church in America announced that Jesus has fellowship with believers even though we as believers are still dirty and sinners at heart. How can that be? How can the Holy God of the Universe be in fellowship with dirty sinners? As the animals were incompatible with Adam and so God created Eve from Adam--100% compatible with him for she was from him, in the same way, dirty, sinful humans are not compatible with a Holy God. Therefore, God created a new creation, a new people from His very Spirit that is 100% compatible with Him--the Bride of Christ! So what does that mean we now are? Are we who believe in Jesus dirty sinners still? No one would suggest sin doesn't still manifest through a believer, but who are we at our core? John answers that for us with a simple statement that has been in our bibles for 2000 years but is more profoun

Jesus is all over the Old Testament. Today, Brandon shares Jesus from Daniel!

Adam & Eve had a wedding reception (of sorts) in that after they were married, they had a meal. The meal cost them their lives. Today, in the New Covenant, we have a reception in our marriage to Jesus! This doesn't take our live, but rather gives us Life! The first reception was founded on rebellion and independence. The last reception is founded on total dependence. Where do you find your marriage? Are you trying to do it independent of Jesus who lives in you? If so, death will follow. However, if you learn to see just how dependent you are upon Jesus, then you will see life in your marriage!

Love and marriage may in fact go together like a horse and carriage, but what if you have no trust? If you have no trust, you likely have no love! We've been seeing how our marriages to our spouses are a glorious shadow of a glorious substance--Christ & His bride, the Church. Just as Jesus loves the Church, husbands are to love their wives! But the Apostles also taught that just as the church submits to Jesus, wives are to submit to Jesus. What is that all about? In order to know what it looks like for a wife to "submit" to her husband, we must wrap our minds around what it looks like for the church to "submit" to Jesus. At the end of the day, the church submits to Jesus by TRUSTING Him! In the same way, a wife being able to trust and actually trusting her husband makes for a great marriage!

It sounds weird doesn't it? But has God been through a divorce? Jeremiah 31:32 says, the new covenant will “'not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I WAS THEIR HUSBAND,' declares the Lord.” God’s “first marriage” was to the Jews and the vows were based on the faithfulness of both the husband (God) and the bride (Israel). The Jews said, “We do! We will do everything required of us!” (Exodus 19:8). However, it didn’t take much time for them to break their vows. In the breaking of their vows, the marriage covenant dissolved even though God Almighty was their HUSBAND. However, because of the deep love of God, He had in mind a new marriage to Israel. This new marriage would have new vows. The new vows would no longer be based on the faithfulness of the Husband AND the bride. The new vows would be based on the faithfulness of the Father of the Groom and the Groom/Husband himself alone! S

We've been doing marriage for millennia, but what do we really know about marriage? We know our experience of being married, but what is it really? As we continue our new marriage series, we will rewind all the way back to the very first marriage and possibly learn more about our own marriage to Christ than Adam's marriage to Eve, for marriage, at its core, is a glorious shadow of our union with Christ! So, as we've been saying, if we want to learn how to do marriage here in this world, we must discover what marriage is fashioned after--our union with Christ! Click here for the bible app notes: http://bible.com/events/284598

As we wrap up our "Christianity: ALL NATURAL" theme, we are given some of the most practical wisdom possible. The enemy shall attack! How do we stand up against it? Is it by trying harder? By committing more? By loving Jesus better? Maybe it's by learning to put on things that we already have!

We have all heard that Christianity involves a new birth. We have been told so many times that we need to be born again that, unfortunately, for many this beautiful truth has simply turned into a mundane slogan of the Christian faith. What if we looked at the first time a discussion mentioned new birth and got to the bottom of this mystery? Who first talked of new birth? To whom was it spoken? Why is new birth required and how do you receive it? We try to answer all of these questions as we tackle one of the most beautiful passages of Scripture ever written.

Ephesians 5:1-6:9 There are many differing opinions on how we are to grow as christians. Unfortunately, the biggest "tool" religious christianity uses is to put born again believers back under the Law of Moses, thinking it will curb sinning and produce a fruitful life. But what do the Apostles teach? What actually matures us?

Once we become believers by the grace of God, what is it that God uses to mature us the rest of our lives? Many would say He uses the Law of Moses (10 Commandments, etc). However, that simply isn't the case! Paul says that sin is empowered by the Law! If that's true, then why would we use the Law to supposedly mature believers? Maybe, just maybe, the same grace that saves us is the same grace that matures us!

It seems as though wherever you look today, there's bad news everywhere. Globally, North Korea is threatening missile strikes. Even locally, we see another chaotic protest by the KKK and their friends this weekend here in Charlottesville. There's plenty of bad news! How about some Good News? We continue looking at the greatest, most radical racial reconciliation ever in the history of man--the bringing together of Jew and Gentile into one new man! All of this was a mystery, but it is now revealed in Jesus! In fact, this bringing together of Jew and Gentile into Christ is God's way of showing off how wise and glorious He truly is! And we are a part of it! Now that's some good news!

We're called to live by faith right? Well, that might be much more difficult that we might have thought. Particularly when we consider the truth that Jesus' once and for all work one the cross actually took away all our sins. Do we believe that we are 100% forgiven? Peter says that believing we are forgiven of all our sins is the key to seeing the Spirit work out what the Father has worked in!

One huge part of the gospel that is often missed is that by making us who believe OK with God, He actually also makes us OK with each other! Jesus brought the most divided people group together as one new man--Jew & Gentile. He did it by tearing down the dividing wall that separated the Jews and Gentiles. What was that dividing wall you ask? Might be surprised! It was the Mosaic Law!

There's a lot of debate about whom God chose! Likely the debate will not end after this Sunday at Life Journey! However, we can take the time to look back at one of the key passages of Scripture which speaks of God's choosing and see, in context, what it's really all about without the 2000 years of add-ons!

There's a lot of confusion surrounding the "Judgment Seat of Christ." The biggest confusion is when people say that believers will face judgment for their sins in this judgment. This is confusing because the core of the gospel is that all our sins are forgiven! So how can our sins be forgiven AND we stand before Jesus for our sins? Which is it?

We continue Sunday discussing our new identity in Christ. One of the biggest differences between the truth of the gospel and all the religious extras so prevalent today is that the true gospel says, "As our minds are renewed to the truth of who we now are, our behavior will follow naturally!" Whereas the religious add-ons state, "Get your behavior improved so that you can become who God wants you to be." See the difference? Are we trying to improve our behavior so that we can become something, or has God made us something new and the clearer we see it the more real it becomes to us and godly behavior flows from it?

As we continue our discovery of what Christianity really is without all the add-ons, we going to start talking about identity. One of the things the Enemy has blinded believers to is our true identity in Christ. The scriptures declare we are "blameless, holy, forgiven, righteous, beloved, dead to sin, alive to God" and so many other amazing things. But most of the time we don't feel these things do we? Often we feel quite the opposite. Well, instead of allowing our feelings to dictate truth, we just want to strip away all the religious add-ons and get back to the pure simple reality of our new identity in Christ and live from that! This Sunday we'll see how, if we have believed in Jesus, we have already died!