Nurture exotic faith towards the perspective of heaven | God's Glory, our delight

Stephanie enjoins us to embrace exotic faith with the goal of developing the perspective of heaven in our hearts - namely, in order to start perceiving our life and circumstances and relationships the way God does.

God sees us as He created us to be—not as we are today, right now, with all our imperfections. He sees the finished product. One of Stephanie's favorite descriptions of ourselves?  "We are half-baked masterpieces."

Masterpieces? That’s how God calls us:

Ephesians 2:10 - For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

Psalm139:14 -  I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

Genesis1:27 - So God created mankind in his own image,
    in the image of God he created them;
    male and female he created them.

But half-baked, because we are a work under construction.

Philippians 2:12-13 - continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.

Ephesians 4:24 - put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Half baked masterpieces. That’s you and me today. Stephanie shares, "The more I see myself as God sees me, the easier I will find it to delight in His glory."

So in this context, how do we approach suffering, and how does humility give us the proper perspective when trials and pain hit home? Humility is both the soil that allows faith to grow, and the fruit that grows from that tree of faith. And it all points to delight in the glory of God as our ultimate goal and purpose.

Paul tells us of his amazing revelations. He says he was caught up in the third heaven (2Cor 12:2). He literally got the perspective of Heaven. And it was so glorious, that he was actually at risk of developing pride. At risk of thinking he was better than others for having been granted such a perspective. So God, in His wise goodness, afflicted Paul with a thorn. Paul asks for the affliction to be taken away.

That’s the context for a few famous verses from the pen of Paul, when God tells Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2Corinthians 12:9) and Paul’s conclusion, verse 10: For when I am weak, then I am strong.

This is a lesson we all must learn if we truly seek to delight in the glory of God. Pride has no place in this quest. So Paul went from pride of place to delight in God. He didn’t regret it for a minute: the moment he understood why this affliction was not taken away, but that it was given as a grace, then he stopped asking for it to be removed.

He actually started thanking God for it. Not because he was masochistic or loved being in pain, or wanted to be pitied, or wanted to tell us how amazing he is for handling such pain. But Because he wanted to live in God’s strength, not his own.

DISCOVER THE GOSPEL SPICE MINISTRIES

The Gospel Spice Podcast is part of a larger range of tools given to you by Gospel Spice Ministries.

In a nutshell, we exist to inspire Christ-followers to delight in God.

In more details: we provide resources to empower Christian leaders across generational, social, ethnic and geographical boundaries towards more intimacy with Jesus Christ and discipleship effectiveness through a Biblical Christocentric foundation. The Gospel-Spice Ministries provide a safe environment for spiritual and community growth empowering people to know Christ more intimately, serve one another more powerfully, and reach the world for Jesus.

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PAY IT FORWARD!! Would you consider supporting this show today to help others enjoy it for free? It comes to you completely free, but is labor-intensive to produce, and we want to keep putting it in the ears of people!

Gospel Spice Ministries is a non-profit organization registered under the tax-exempt 501c3 status. Your donations are tax-deductible under IRS Section 170. We want to be the best possible stewards of your financial support. All donations above our minimal operating costs go to Christian organizations fighting human trafficking.

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(*ListenNotes ranking, 2023)

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First, PAY Gospel Spice Forward: Give a tax-deductible gift so others can experience our ministry for free, just like you! You can pay it forward with any debit, credit card, or via PayPal. See below for more details about your impact.

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And, last but not least, PRAY Gospel Spice Forward: We pray for you weekly. We covet your prayers for our ministry, the thousands we reach, and our team! Contact us to let us know you are praying for us!

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Another way to partner with us is to purchase our workbooks and online Bible studies. We keep them at the lowest possible cost, but they require a lot of work from us! For example,

- a complete Bible Study requires an average of 500 man-hours.

- a workbook for a series requires almost 100 man-hours.

MORE ABOUT PARTNERING WITH US FINANCIALLY:

Gospel Spice Ministries is a non-profit organization registered under the tax-exempt 501c3 status.

Our goal is to provide in-depth, high-quality, free Bible resources for all. They are free, but expensive to create! We need your financial support to keep producing and distributing them. Please pay Gospel Spice forward today! For example, a podcast episode takes close to 10 hours of work (and we release 2 each week). They come to you completely free, but we would truly love your support.

We want the money to go to those who really need it. Once our operating costs are paid, 100% of your donation is redistributed to our partners who fight human trafficking. Each year, we aim to give as much as we can. For example, Stephanie works more than full time for Gospel Spice, entirely for free. All board members and volunteers are donating time. We limit our operational expenses to the bare minimum.

Your pay-it-forward donations are tax-deductible under IRS Section 170.

We want to be the best possible stewards of your financial support. Thank you!

Go to gospelspice.com for more, and go especially to gospelspice.com/podcast to enjoy our guests! Interested in our blog? Click here: gospelspice.com/blog

GOD'S GLORY, OUR DELIGHT | THE GOSPEL SPICE SERIES

Delighting in the glory of God. Does this concept strike you as reserved for spiritual contemplatives? What if, instead, it proved the highly practical, deeply foundational perspective you need right now?

Why does God’s glory even matter in our day and age? How can we learn from Jesus to make His glory our true North and lifelong quest? What keeps us from fully stepping into this God-ordained purpose for our life? How do we kindle delight for God on a daily basis? And, once we have embraced God’s glory as our heart’s true delight, how can we then come alongside others?

Join us to cultivate a sincere delight for God’s glory, rooted in an honest, hard look at the depth of our need, and in the much deeper Reality of His grace. Trace the glory of God through Scripture and in your own life. Behold the exact radiance of God’s glory, revealed in Jesus. Learn to see yourself as Christ does—through the lens of the Father’s love at the cross. Jesus offers to overwhelm our deadly self-centeredness with His resurrection power. He carries us every step of the way, even as He calls us to true humility on the path to glory.

Who has time to cultivate the delight that comes from pondering the glory of God? And yet, nothing could be more urgent today. Marthas and Marys, Peters and Johns—we are all invited to dare to dream of a lifestyle of God-centered delight. Nothing could be more practical.

Go to gospelspice.com for more, and go especially to gospelspice.com/podcast to enjoy our guests! Interested in our blog? Click here: gospelspice.com/blog

This month we are celebrating the anniversary of Gospel Spice! We launched our first episode in 2019, when we faithfully and haltingly followed God's pretty clear directions!

Would you please take a moment to celebrate with us? There are 4 very simple ways to do that, and it would truly mean the world to us. 

1- If you’ve enjoyed this episode, you will love receiving our newsletter. It contains value-packed free gifts and rich content each month. It’s at gospelspice.com/signup. There is always something new and exciting happening around here, and I don’t want you to miss out! Sign up at Gospelspice.com/signup

2- Did you know Gospel Spice has a YouTube Channel? There’s exclusive content there too. So, join Gospel Spice on YouTube! It's at https://www.youtube.com/gospelspice 

3- Also please give us a star rating and a comment on your podcast listening app. Your reviews actually really do make a difference to help others discover and experience Gospel Spice. You would be surprised how helpful these are! So please leave a star rating and a review of a sentence or two. Thank you!

4- As always, we are praying for you! You can confidentially email us your prayer requests and praise items at the email address contact@gospelspice.com. It is our privilege to pray for you!

So, would you please invest 3 to 5 minutes of your time, maybe even right now, to do 1 or more of the following suggestions:

1-      signup on our website for our newsletter to receive gifts you’re going to love - at Gospelspice.com/signup 

2-      find us on YouTube, and see what content we’ve put together to help you grow closer to Jesus - at https://www.youtube.com/gospelspice

3-      rate Gospel Spice on your listening app – it’s one of the easiest ways to share the gospel!

4-      and finally, tell us how we can pray for you!

Do you enjoy Gospel Spice? Then let's deepen our relationship! There are 4 very simple ways to do that, and it would truly mean the world to us. 

1- If you’ve enjoyed this episode, you will love receiving our newsletter. It contains value-packed free gifts and rich content each month. It’s at gospelspice.com/signup. There is always something new and exciting happening around here, and I don’t want you to miss out! Sign up at Gospelspice.com/signup

2- Did you know Gospel Spice has a YouTube Channel? There’s exclusive content there too. So, join Gospel Spice on YouTube! It's at https://www.youtube.com/gospelspice

3- Also please give us a star rating and a comment on your podcast listening app. Your reviews actually really do make a difference to help others discover and experience Gospel Spice. You would be surprised how helpful these are! So please leave a star rating and a review of a sentence or two. Thank you!

4- As always, we are praying for you! You can confidentially email us your prayer requests and praise items at the email address contact@gospelspice.com. It is our privilege to pray for you!

So, would you please invest 3 to 5 minutes of your time, maybe even right now, to do one (or more!) of the following suggestions:

1-      signup on our website for our newsletter to receive gifts you’re going to love - at Gospelspice.com/signup

2-      find us on YouTube, and see what content we’ve put together to help you grow closer to Jesus - at https://www.youtube.com/gospelspice

3-      rate Gospel Spice on your listening app – it’s one of the easiest ways to share the gospel!

4-      and finally, tell us how we can pray for you!

Go to gospelspice.com for more, and go especially to gospelspice.com/podcast to enjoy our guests! Interested in our blog? Click here: gospelspice.com/blog

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