Reliable Truth

How can the events of Easter transform the heart?Let's consider the events that took place on that first Good Friday and that first Easter morning. If they actually happened as events of history, then they are the defining events In all of life; in all of history. As Blaise Pascal observed, apart from Jesus, His crucifixion, and His resurrection, we cannot know the meaning of life, of our death, of God, or of anything else. I contend that these Easter events have the power to convert and change the mind and the intellect, and to transform the heart. Today I want to consider how the cross and how the resurrection impact the mind and the heart. This is an important place to start as we live in an age of skepticism.What is the foundation that I can build my faith and my belief on? Hebrews 2:9 says, "But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because He suffered death, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone." When the gospel of grace truly penetrates your heart, it will change you. It will transform you.

When thinking about manhood or what really defines what a man is; what do you usually think of? Money? Success? Women? Today Richard joins Brett on The Brett Snodgrass Podcast to discuss what the true measure of a man really is! We talk about fear of failure and unnecessary shame that comes with being a man. We also discuss why fathers need to be teaching their sons about masculinity at a young age and how God plays a role in being a man.Brett Snodgrass is a successful entrepreneur and host of The Brett Snodgrass Podcast. Brett’s vision is to build a community of entrepreneurs and businessmen who truly desire to learn from and help each other to live their purpose. This episode originally aired on The Brett Snodgrass Podcast on March 14, 2022. Click here to watch the complete episode.

I believe we have a tendency to live out the future in our imagination before it arrives.For many of us, our lives are truly out of sync with time because we’re always anticipating the future. We all are always trying to rearrange our lives around future expectations of happiness. Blaise Pascal says this:“We never keep to the present. We recall the past; we anticipate the future as if we found it too slow in coming and were trying to hurry it up... We are so unwise that we wander about in times that do not belong to us, and do not think of the only one that does... We almost never think of the present and if we do think of it, it is only to see what light it throws on our plans for the future.The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means, the future alone, our end. Thus we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we are always planning how to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so.”If we have dealt with our past and we live at peace with our future, as we look to the future, you know what C.S. Lewis tells us, then we’re able to truly love in the present, in the now. He says, why? Because we will have dealt with all of the obstacles to love.Now think about it. The past our faith is built on. The future, there’s hope. In the present, there is love. If you’re familiar with the great love chapter, Paul says faith, hope and love. He says, this is the essence of life.

You are what you remember.I believe that what we remember affects who we are and what we experience in this life. Many people are haunted or weighed down by baggage from the past. Others try to live in the future, thinking that when they get to a certain point later, then life will be full and complete. Either perspective makes their lives in the present miserable. God designed us to live a full and joyful life each day, with no impediments from the past or the future. Today we're looking at how to deal with the past. Next week, we'll cover dealing with the future. If our lives are healed of past wounds and moral failures, if we are able to let go of anger, hatred, and bitterness by forgiving others, and if we have a strong faith built on God’s Word, on God’s revelation from the past, just think of the life you could live. Think of how free and how vibrant and how healthy you could be, and think of how abundant life would be in the present. Right now.

What is the value of living a humble life?Life for most of us is all about what we do and how successful we are. Yet in today’s culture and with the power of social media, we also want to be well-known and admired for it. This is called the “pride of life.”Humble people are grateful people. They recognize who deserves the credit for everything in their lives.In this message I dig into the issue of pride and arrogance and then explore what I consider life’s great paradox: the power of humility.  - Richard

Do you need help with your relationships?Donald Miller says, "...the words alone, lonely and loneliness are three of the most powerful words in the English language... Those words say that we are human... they are like the words hunger and thirst, but they are not words about the body, they are words about the soul."God designed people to need other people. We are relational beings because God is relational. And we love, as scripture says, because He first loved us. The soul needs to interact with other people to be healthy. Join us for Richard's message on how to make our relationships flourish and thrive.

Is your sexuality sacred to you? I contend that one of the most meaningful and powerful sources of joy in this life is our sexuality, particularly in the context in which God designed it. But when it's abused and misused, I believe, and I have seen, that it can be a source of unbelievable pain and guilt.In our last episode we discussed getting wisdom for handling our money. Well, the way we regard our money and material wealth and the way we regard sexuality says a lot about us and what's going on in our lives. It says a lot about our culture. Today I'd like to lay out and make a case for the Christian biblical view of sexuality.

Do you need wisdom for your finances today? Blaise Bascal once said, "Human beings find life to be unsatisfying and incoherent as time goes by, because they have false beliefs and false ideas on matters important for living a high quality of life." He goes on to say, "Therefore it is critical that gain genuine wisdom by uprooting false beliefs and replacing them with true insights and perspective."We often are not aware that what we believe is false until we get burned by the belief.

What will life in heaven really be like? Will we just be spiritual beings floating around in heaven? The Bible teaches that heaven is a place of joyous celebration, and that we will each have a physical, glorified body in heaven. Philippians 3:20-21 says, "For our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables Him to bring everything under His control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like His glorious body."In Matthew 22:2 Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come. Revelation 1:9 "Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb." Have you accepted God's offer of heaven for you?Today's message follows up on a recent podcast series that Richard taught on Jesus' parable called The Rich Man and Lazarus. 

Do you know what life is like if there is no God? ​It’s kind of like the view that John Lennon wrote about in his song, "Imagine." He says, “Imagine there’s no Heaven, it’s easy if you try, no hell below us, above us, only sky. Imagine all the people living for today.” Lennon is saying, just imagine what it would be like if there was no God and no Heaven and no religion.​Solomon says that life "under the sun" leads to a life that is empty and meaningless. And so, what do we do? We look for ways to divert the mind and tend to center our lives on pleasure and our work. But then we discover that it doesn’t keep emptiness out of our lives. It doesn’t permanently satisfy.Dallas Willard said, “Meaning is one of the greatest needs of human life. One of our deepest hungers. Perhaps it is in the final analysis, the most basic need in the realm of the human experience. Almost anything can be born if life as a whole is meaningful. As Albert Camus, the very famous Nobel prize winning Christian novelist says, ‘The foundational question about life is the question of meaning. Everything else is secondary.’ And until you answer this question, you cannot give answers to the other questions of life. And what Camus was saying was, this is life’s most pivotal question.”Why do we have this desire and this sense of wanting permanence to our lives? Join us for this final lesson in finding wisdom in the book of Ecclesiastes!