Born to Be Free

What's the difference between merely hoping things will work out and actually trusting that they already have?

Faith is thanking God that he has already done the thing knowing that the moment he speaks it, it is done. Immediately God says it, it's done and we walk on in that absolute assurance.

Why do so many of us walk around needing to prove ourselves? The roots of that restless self-doubt—and how the constant need for approval can actually be laid to rest.

Many of us live with an ominous sense of worry and anxiety as if someone disapproves of us. How can we get rid of these feelings so we can have peace?

Almost all of us have a sense that we are falling short in life. How can we ever be put right and be all that God wants us to be?

God uses affliction to break us from that dependence on things going right which we falsely see as the mark of a Christian.

So often it’s how Christians act that put others off Jesus. How does it happen that a believer can be accepted by God and yet act so unlike the Savior?

God loves all of us independent of the kind of people we are. But, we’ll learn in this talk why he doesn’t accept all of us.

How is it that we can have any real significance in this world? This talk shows us how we can end our constant struggle for achievement and position.

Are you a Christian on the outside, but inside you’re a mess? You try and live like Jesus but inside you’re not like Him at all?

How is it that we have turned such a beautiful world into such a mess? Can we blame our troubles today on Adam and Eve and their sin?

When we resist God’s spirit speaking to us it is sin. Our independence of God will always bring about some form of death manifested in thoughts, words, or deeds.

Do you feel the threat of condemnation over your life? God has made a way for every individual to escape the destruction that this world is heading towards.

Do we suffer from wandering thoughts, forgetfulness and impaired judgment? Is there a way to bring our minds back into order?

Why do we have to continually find newer and greater excitement? Is there something we’re missing that would give lasting satisfaction and peace?

Have you ever wished you could live forever? Were we meant to face sickness and death? Is there a way free of these?

Many of us believe in God but have we ever experienced a miracle?

Historical evidence makes it easy to believe in Jesus. But isn’t it also hard to believe in him? Isn’t the answer in the way he came into Mary?

Many of us know God’s faithfulness to forgive our sins, but then why do we still continue to sin?

Are we trying to keep the law? It’s not meant to keep, but to show our natural life is not the right stuff-where we lack miracle life we’re made for.

There are 2 ways to live: Are we sliding into mindlessness, excusing our disbelief or is there a life opening into meaningfulness to choose?

God has found a way to give us a second chance. But have we ever done anything about his offer? Whose move is it now?

Why do we still worry? Why do we believe in God but live as if there is no God. Does he have something better? Have we received his nature?

Are there shadowy places in our Christian lives that really can’t be called Christian? Did Jesus do more for us than we have yet seen?

Cancer treatment’s dilemma is keeping healthy cells alive while radiating the malignant. How to radiate our bad temper and lust, yet keep us alive?

In today’s world there seems to be a rising ‘personal power of evil’ that is gripping society. Why, after all our efforts have we not overcome this power?

A supernatural power of independence and rebellion is becoming more commonplace in our schools and communities. What can be done to stem this tide?

Every one of us have experienced a supernatural force inside us that we cannot control. Why is this and what can we do about it?

I want to do what is right, but for some reason, every time I try somehow I fail. I lack the power inside to do what I know is right. What can I do?

Has your temper ever flared and taken control over you? It is possible to find a lasting cure for this evil destructive force within us.

It is a big step in a man or woman’s life when you see that your outward acts, words & thoughts are only signs of an inward self that is a real monster.

We all face inward struggles and moral failure in our lives. Do we just settle with doing the best we can, or is there a final cure for this disease?

Many of us have tried to change by the power of positive thinking, buty with limited success. Can we ever break free of the vicious circle of living inside our little world?

Many of us believed that we could educate ourselves into good moral behavior, only to find our good intentions failed us. Does anyone know an answer?

Is sin OK because we’re no longer under law but grace? The purpose of coming under grace is so that we would be able to stop sinning and naturally obey God’s law.

The law is not something we have to legalistically strain and strive to obey. The law is something we are meant to obey spontaneously and automatically.

Living under grace means having the opportunity to receive the Holy Spirit into you and to allow him to live the life of Jesus over again inside you..

We can experience the freedom of being delivered from our own self with its resentments, impure intentions and the bad behaviors that abuse our bodies.

Unbalanced emotions can create wildcat personalities that need to be re-routed and re-trained. Is it possible to automatically live an unselfish life?

Do you hear a whisper inside that says lust, criticism, gluttony, pride, and dishonesty are wrong? Can you experience perfect freedom from self-importance?

Shameful living — promiscuity, greed, dishonesty or immoral actions — brings death to relationships — not real lasting peace and happiness.

The Holy Spirit is the one who makes truth real in your life, otherwise, it will always be dead knowledge.

Do you use others to get emotional thrills? Perhaps there’s nobody you can trust or who accepts and loves you — leaving you dissipated and frustrated.

Why do people do horrible things? It’s as if they have an inner selfish side that wants to burst out. Does your attitude toward the law make you depressed?

If you’re anxious to live life for yourself, having a desire for self’s rights and self’s ways, then you’ll fall into either legalism or antinomianism.

Do we live lives of strain with no hope, lack of confidence or being pursued by an inferiority complex? Weren’t we made to experience joy and peace?

Are you pretending — trying to be what you are not? This is a sure way to live in miserable strain — a schizophrenic life that is filled with failures and defeat.

If you are depressed or anxious, there is only one you can truly trust. How can God’s law be a dear friend, refresher, colleague and counselor to you?

Are you suppressing that little vague sense that there is something missing in your life? Planning your own life to get what you want brings only despair.

Do you manage life quite well without God? When you blow it do you say “no one is perfect?” All you can do is try to live the best you can.

How many of us get under false condemnation through utterly misusing God’s concept of law? Or come under legalism and works to prove our rightness?

Why do we turn things that are joyful, free and spontaneous in life into a set of rules which creates tremendous tension making us uptight people?

Many of us are in agony over sexual sins, anger, jealousy, envy, bitterness in our lives and hope some day we will be freed from the tyranny of it.

How often have we said those words “I can’t”? I want to but I can’t stop eating, can’t stop being irritable,or being self-centered. Are we pretending?

If you are one little fly among three and a half billion other flies, how do you keep yourself on top? Why do we manipulate things to our advantage?

There’s a streak of irrationality that we experience, that monster within that will act against it’s own best advantage in order to have it’s own way.

Are you trying to get love and satisfaction from the world and people around, like a parasite that lives off others? Are you free to do what you want?

There is a way to freedom by stopping the right to let your will be guided from without and committing your will to being guided by your conscience.

If the will can will a thing and yet your body doesn’t respond or your mind or emotions don’t respond to it, then what keeps us from falling apart?

When we lose our temper or fail to have pure thoughts, we beat ourselves. We’re so egotistical that we believe we produce all this evil ourselves.

Why is it that whenever I try to do right, evil lies close at hand? Why does our whole personality work the wrong way around? Can that be reversed?

Our inmost self must express itself to the world in outward actions as we are directed by God. Our conscience constrains our mind and wills to do good.

Do you feel sometimes you have a split personality? Wanting approval from others to boost your self esteem but also wanting to be left alone?

Do you go to self help or anger management groups to try to solve the hypocrisy you feel at times in your life?

Do you react with anger every time someone offends you? Or does jealousy creep in when someone else is praised? Is there a different way to react?

Is your life so self managed that when something doesn’t go the way you wanted, you become angry or discouraged? Why is this? Is there freedom from that?

Do you feel hopeless when things don’t go your way? Do you react harshly and then feel condemned for it? What do you do with that feeling?

What brings us peace? Dostoevsky said, “The only reason a person will act against their own best advantage is to have their own way.” Is that true?

Is your personality doing wrong when you want to do right? Do you have an outward expression of right living but inside is all jealousy, anger, or self-pity? Can we change and if so, how?

Can we change our personalities? Counseling and psychology just put a patch over the real issue — our perverted personalities. Where can we get help?

The natural self drives us to selfishness, hurting people, using possessions for our own satisfaction and needs. Is this right?

Our peace and full satisfaction come from doing what we were created to do. How do we find what that is?

Can we deliver ourselves from selfishness and self-centeredness by method or technique? A death must take place instead. Jesus’ death for each of us.

Bad temper, resentment or telling white lies to protect our reputation are traits we either excuse or think we can change ourselves. But can we really change ourselves?

How do you deal with anxiety or the irritating habits of others? By your own methods, like taking a shot of whisky? Or is there another way to live?

Many of us depend only on our bodies or other people for our sexual or financial needs. We become a kind of parasite of others vs. giving to others.

Many of us try to establish our value to the world by the things that we achieve. But this often brings strain and stress. Can we live free from stress?

Our bodies are dying from stress and high blood pressure because we think we’re responsible for our own lives and there’s nobody to take care of us.

We’re not animals or psychological beings in a closed mechanistic universe. There’s a spirit part of us that enables us to be conscious of God.

Many of us have plans for how we will manage our lives, our jobs, our marriages. We think these plans will make us happy – but often they don’t. Why?

For centuries two aspirations have haunted us as human beings: that it was possible to be one with your Creator — and that we could live forever.

You were designed to do something in the world that nobody else can do. That’s why you’re here. How can you find out what that is, and who made you?

We either live in fear or trust. Many of us govern our lives by the desires of our bodies and minds vs. a belief that we have a purpose in life.

What is your ruling passion? A motorcycle? Your ideal career move? And when you get it, does it really make you happy? Why are we driven people?

Why are we driven by the desire for profit, power or success? That attitude is quite different from the one we had as children in our father’s arms.

Why isn’t Christianity easy? While it seems wonderfully simple to begin – yet unexpectedly our commitment is soon challenged. We are out of our depth.

Suffering shows us that temporal things and human relationships aren’t the basis of life. God reveals all we can live without and still be happy.

A simplistic life view thinks bad happens to bad people and good happens to the good. We all experience both — and they can draw us out of ourselves to God.

There’s plenty of evidence that the earth and human life experience catastrophe and we wonder why. This God allows, to gain our attention.

Life seems punctuated by breakthrough and catastrophe. Two steps forward and one back. We believe there’s a better world – where does that come from?

Remember the story of the lion with a thorn in his paw – groaning for relief? Groaning expresses a hope for release. What does the world groan about?

Perfection seems artificial until we consider a rose. Its beauty grows from the bud. Love, which God puts in our heart, blooms too – that’s perfection.

How perfect can we be? It seems unattainable, yet Jesus said: 'You must be perfect". What does He mean by that? It seems we are nowhere near perfection.

Be perfect as your heavenly Father – How? Be perfect in love – demonstrated by a life of kindliness and patience to those around you.

How can personality weaknesses in us prevent others from pursuing and knowing God?

Living a good outward life and receiving God’s life into ours identifies problems. We find participating with God requires a complete rewiring.

If God already knows what every situation needs, why do so many of my prayers seem to go unanswered — am I asking for the wrong things in the wrong way?

A debate between luck (in a situation) or providence (God pulling strings) implies that humans are pawns. Not so; God wishes and expects our participation.

Have you ever heard, “Be careful what you wish for?” Could some “good” things we seek actually bring us great harm?

Supernatural life can be yours. How? Stop living for yourself — and start living for God’s purpose.

If God brings good things to some people, and bad to others, why should we even try to do good? Do I have free will to choose how my life will go?

Are we always trying to justify what we are — because we aren’t what we should be? Is there a way out?

You may ask, “Does God exist, or care what I do?” God calls us all, but only some accept his call. Those who do, see him bring glory in their lives.

Some of us need to see that God is for us even when he’s working on the things that are wrong in our life. He’s not condemning us – he’s for us.

Accusations that we are too rotten for God to love us come from Satan, not God. We answer him that God has canceled the case against us -and loves us.

Though many say it isn’t so, there exists a person called Satan. We’re wrong when we say he has tremendous power. His only power is that of deception.

Some say about the resurrection of Jesus: this couldn’t happen, so it didn’t happen. This is anti-intellectual, anti-historical, and anti-fact.

We can believe the best for those who seem to be out to destroy us. This is because God is in charge, and he won’t let them!

Do you wish you were different than you are? God wiped out your old perverted self in Jesus. His purpose was that you’d receive his own nature-the Holy Spirit.

God took that personality of yours that is so miserable, and put it into his son Jesus and destroyed it there. You don’t need to be a slave to that.

Ever felt like you didn’t have a right to be alive?

If your only sense of worth comes when others praise you or notice you what happens when those things stop? Where does that leave you?

Do you have enough diversions to endure another day?

Do you believe, like the poet Dylan Thomas, that because life is full of chance you have to fight through everything that comes your way on your own?

We can crumble and crawl in a corner when personal relationships are unbearable or things are not working out in our jobs. But we don’t have to.

Have you ever been addicted to food, caffeine, or money? No? What about praise? Do you crave praise so you can feel good about yourself?

The warning signals that come to you in headaches, anxiety, and worry are meant to warn you that you're not living the way you were meant to live. You were meant to trust your loving Father for all that day. You were meant to look to him each moment, and he’d have taken care of the emergencies, and he’d have enabled you to get over the difficulties.

There is a way to live free from all the character traits and behaviors that never seem to let us go.

Do you crumble under pressure and criticism or when you’re forgotten entirely? Does your happiness depend on what others think and how they treat you?

Was your home life ideal growing up? Even if it wasn’t, did you sense you were made to be loved. Where did that come from?

Famine, wars, and plagues for centuries have been said to refer to the "end times". What does this have to do with your life?

Aside from atheists who refuse to accept the reality of a Supreme Being, most of us admire the strength of the Creator in the things we see around us.

Summary of Romans chapters 1 through 8. Consecration and New Birth are essential in knowing God in a personal way.

How do you find direction for your life? Facebook? The Web? Friends? Is there is another way?

Is sorrow and pain we experience the same thing as adversity in our lives? Is there something else we can experience?

If you and I can begin to see the world through God’s eyes, from his point of view and not from our own, then we would begin to experience an incredible power in our lives.

Love is being prepared to put yourself in the other one’s shoes so that they can be free. If we control how much we give, that isn’t real love.

What can best prove the existence of God except a group of people, the Jews, who express God’s continuity in their everyday actions and life?

There is a difference in being just a believer in God and an actual child or son of God.

Being born again is a personal, spiritual change of our personality. It’s allowing the Holy Spirit to make changes in our nature.

A personal relationship with God starts with us realizing sin in our lives and looking to God for his forgiveness and cleanness.

God has given us in Jesus’ death a New Covenant (or promise) which destroyed our old, corrupt, selfish personalities and remakes them by His Holy Spirit.

Jesus’ death allows not only forgiveness of sins but also allows a spiritual change of your personality if you allow it.

Our conscience and civil laws tell us what is right and keep chaos from our society. This speaks of a God who exists and his influence in our world.

Throughout history God has been faithful and trustworthy to a person who turns to him, even if we feel unworthy to have a relationship with him.

Worship is preoccupation with God. It is daily giving to God the best in our lives to use as He wishes.

Abraham, Isaac and Jacob show us a new way to live our lives. We can be free from the desire to manipulate people and events to get our own desires and way.

Is our relationship with God based on being part of a group and what that group thinks? Shouldn’t it be based on our relationship with Jesus?

A Christian is a changed life because of believing into Jesus’ death and then being raised from the dead into newness of life.

Until you allow God to destroy your old self, you will remain a ‘do-gooder’.

We can rely implicitly on God’s promises for our jobs, families, and marriages. Faith in promises not faith in circumstances.

God’s choice is for us to do what comes naturally anywhere He puts us. Our security and joy should be in Him and not in our job.

Our vocation is to bring order to God’s world and transmit love and peace of Jesus to colleagues and people we meet each day.

God’s plan for you is unique and takes into account your abilities. You job should not be to get significance and happiness-only God can give you that.

God will express mercy in relationship to the compassion in His nature. He cannot act against that. God is holy and He’ll have mercy on holy people.

Belief means to be in accordance with Jesus’ death. God’s power in us makes His death and resurrection life real in us apart from our efforts.

Even Pharaoh Hitler and Stalin were, at the right moment, under God’s control when it came to protecting God’s own people.

A spiritual law – if we reject that mercy by disobeying God and hardening our will against the things He shows us we should do, our hearts He hardens.

Our free wills affect whether we resist God’s will. Our fault is to deny we have freedom, plus that there is a personal plan for each one of our lives.

Follow your conscience, do what you must do with your abilities and interests to find God’s vocation for you.

Fate does not dictate our lives but our Creator uses all good and bad things to bring about his plan for each of us.

Hitler and Pharaoh chose through their free will to be tyrants-they weren’t created that way. Can we be protected from tyrants and bad experiences? How?

Does God create evil? Is there any reason why evil is in the world?

Is being self sufficient from our Maker who made us an evil thing? Is this why we were created-to endure as best we can the evil that comes our way?

Can we choose how to live our lives? Or are we programmed to be who we are or even a product of our environment or chemical make up?

Is God your Father? Can we be sons of God? We may have many things including money, power & respect and still feel something is missing. Why is this?

Whether separating sheep from goats, wheat from chaff or the remnant from the majority – there is an inevitable dividing process in the spiritual life.

Judgment is the defining moment. The facts and motives are on display, cataloging the decisions of a lifetime. Choices matter now and in the future.

When drowning – cry out Save Me! Do that every day at the beach- you’re missing the point. Learn to swim. Get to know God- that’s why you’re saved!

What wears you out everyday? Is it the personality conflicts, the tension in the office?

What makes some so called Christians unpleasant to be with?

What drip feed are you dependent on in your life and not receiving any satisfaction from? How can you be freed from it?

Do you find yourself offering bribes to God so He will over look your faults and failures?

What kind of person are you? What do you really want most for your friend?

How many of us have so often said that whatever you believe about God, the big thing is that you are sincere about it and that is all that counts?

Why is the number one problem in our society guilt when we seem to have thrown away the book on absolute standards?

Why do we spend so much of our life with almost an unconscious strain all the time trying to be what we aren’t?

Do you ever find yourself caught in a dilemma where you can’t move? It’s like a complete prison? How can you escape?

Why is there no problem in knowing what our New Year resolutions should be but great problems in keeping them?

Do you have a feeling of rightness about your life? Why do so many of us indulge ourselves in some new self-improvement program?

You may believe that God is taking care of you. But when you don’t have a lot of money or friends, you may worry about it. Why do you do that?

Have you ever thought you wanted to get right with God-but didn’t know how to do it?

God has a plan for your life. What’s your attitude towards it? After you die, will you be able to look God in the eye without being ashamed?

Are you imprisoned in a personality that has become enslaved to doing what people expect it to do?

Do you depend too much on other people’s praise? There’s a cure for this addiction to others’ praise.

How do we receive direction for our lives?

The word of God, often spoken through others, is Christ speaking to us personally. We either respond to this word in faith or in sin. Which will you choose?

Eventually we have to make a choice: either submit to God’s Word and His voice, or get rid of both.

We run our lives on the belief the sun will rise each day that night will come, that seasons will change, yet we wonder if we can trust God.

It’s not those who study and philosophize about trusting God–it’s those who live what is true in their daily lives who trust Him.

You cannot love unless you have a free will to do so.

Is ‘being a good person’ good enough to satisfy God?

Do you worry your way through your day -wondering how you’ll pay the bills, if you’ll keep your job or be able to pay for school?

We choose to view people and circumstances in one of two ways–and the choice we make affects them for good or ill.

Are you listening to that great dragon of self-pity? How often do we say “What have I done to deserve this?” or “If I don’t do it nobody will”?

What is your security based on? Ownership of things or through trusting a friend? Is your life filled with headaches and worry or peace and joy?

God is always involved in giving us an invitation and each time He gives it He clarifies what it means for us and some of us, by our choice, screen ourselves out.

Throughout the centuries real Christians were identified by their behavior. Why is it that society today is almost unaffected by Christians?

META: Do you feel like a pawn in life? Do you think your life is of no particular value or importance?

Many of us feel we couldn’t say we feel close to God but is closeness possible?

Is it possible to become friends with God?

How do we make sense of the fact that although we sense there should be love in our relationships, there isn’t?

Are you walking up the down staircase in your life?

Are you determined to establish yourself in a position apart from God’s will for your life?

No nation so excites our sympathy and our pity as the Jewish nation.

Does a certain preacher really rile you? This will happen every time someone preaches from the Bible.

If you’re a Jew, and see many scriptural prophesies about the Messiah being fulfilled in Jesus’ life, is it feasible to believe that Jesus is Messiah?

There are only two strains of people: those who do the will of their Creator and those who live independent of Him. How do you tell the difference?

God gives his life force to anyone that chooses to walk by faith and not by sight. We see this illustrated in Abraham and through the nation of Israel.

Living by faith concentrates on God’s will and depends on him for all that is needed to do it. What is needed to live a life of faith?

You’re unique! It comes because God loves you and made you for a special purpose-it is only actualized by being born again in Jesus.

God has consistently shown himself to be kind but he will also sever connections with those who will not trust in his kindness. Which life will you choose?

Are you living by God’s supernatural power? If not you will end up living a narrow, dark, self-controlled life that knows nothing of the life of faith.

Faith releases the power of Jesus to change situations. What is necessary for Jesus to continue to develop this world the way he originally intended?

Do you choose to be an opportunist who puts faith in yourself and situations, or an honest person who taps into the real energy behind this world?

Every person has one great concern and preoccupation that rules their whole life. Do we have a free will that allows us to choose where we place our trust?

Our personalities are bred to depend on itself and others, resulting in self-assertion, pride, resentment and anger. Can we live a different way?

How does looking at the history of the Jewish nation speak to us today?

What is my personal calling and purpose in life? There is dignity in my vocation. The specific free, unconditional gifts that I possess are irrevocable.

Can we accept forgiveness when we do wrong? When we do wrong, we are being destroyed spiritually and emotionally. There is a better way to live.

We often feel that we can’t do everything on our own. Our lives can be wonderfully molded by our Father if we put our own uppity determination aside.

Are we still trying to persuade ourselves that we are self-existent beings, having the weight of our lives on ourselves? Is anyone in control?

We are people that can love or not to love by our own free will. We can choose to keep our old personality or the new one that God has for us.

Sorrow and anxiety come when we try to be God — carrying things that we aren’t meant to carry, living in the future and distrusting God’s wisdom.

Our sanity and salvation depends on recognizing that there is an authority in this universe that has the right to tell us what to do or what not to do.

When you begin to add up all that you’ve been given for free only then do you begin to realize your ‘net worth’.

Are you a Jekyll & Hyde character? Does part of you want to love others – while another monster inside wants to lust and have its own way?

What is mankind’s greatest problem? Guilt? Loneliness? Loss of self-esteem? What about the evil in the world? Is there a remedy for this?

Jonathan Edwards’ famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, says that death is the only remedy for the kind of monster we have become.

What is the difference between consecration or giving your life to God – and desperation, frustration or exasperation with the mess your life is in?

Our economic, social and education systems are based on a conformity that is destroying something real inside our own lives. How can we be ourselves?

Where can we find our sense of self-worth and self-esteem? We were made to be loved and valued — to be a free, fresh spirit like we were as children.

A lot of our insecurity, even if we have money and jobs, comes from our need to know that whoever made the world does care about and value us.

Are we alive simply the way animals are? Or were we made for more than a natural life – a supernatural life that comes from our creator?

Is there anything real inside us? Or do we live to please others like a little performing dog? We feel empty inside and lacking direction.

Is your life coming apart? Have drugs, selfishness, self-indulgence, fornication or alcohol created a personality only fit for death? How can we be changed?

What is right to do? By doing the things we know now are right to do, God can explain his particular will for us. We can have pure lives inside and out.

Why did the Creator put us here? We feel responsible and therefore anxious about our jobs, finances, families and futures. How to find God’s will.

Divorces come partly when we are determined to fix each other. We try to use our own personality, mind and emotions to bring about what God alone can do.

Even in recession, we don’t have the right to worry or be anxious. That won’t raise the bank balance, repair the car or get us a job. We are not God.

We have a poor self-image or low self-esteem or are egocentric. But you are valuable because your Creator sees you as invaluable. You are dear to God.

You are unique. There is nobody exactly like you. There is some beauty that is going to come through you that can come through no one else.

Are you a schoolteacher, server or one who helps others? You are a gift yourself, a unique gift. There is nobody like you. How do you find your gift?

We experience unity when each of us is doing the thing our Creator made us to do. But in Hinduism or Buddhism you sink into nothingness or passivity.

An encourager is one who comes alongside one who is depressed or despairing and feels completely what they feel; to put heart into a person.

You each have a gift, and you will have it as long as you are on this earth – it’s irrevocable. It’s not according to your cleverness or importance.

How rich were you when you were born? The nature of the universe is not grasping or protecting, it is giving. We were made to give with generous hearts.

Our society dies not so much from lack of food or from people willing to do good deeds, but from the lack of feeling that somebody else cares about us.

Schaeffer said the humanity would eventually have to choose between chaos and totalitarianism. Leadership is the gift that saves us from that moment.

The gift of leadership holds back the tide of chaos in our world. If you don’t exercise that leadership in love, they are sheep without a shepherd.

Is love the basic attitude in our lives? What does it mean to love? O. Henry’s book The Gift of the Magi shows that what marriage needs most is love.

Why do we have trouble in our families, marriages and relationships? Often we’re not really loving. Genuine love makes sense of our life here on earth.

Surely love by definition must be unselfish? Yet there is a lot of love that isn’t genuine and it is still called love. What is genuine love?

Love your neighbor for their sakes not your sake-Don’t give love to get love or something else. Have no ulterior motive to love.

The purpose of love is not only giving love but wanting the best for the other person by helping them to get ready for eternity with God.

Agape love-selfless love is a gift from God. If we know God will take care of you, his love for others will be freely given to you to express.

To love others we must put away our own concerns and put them first. How is this possible? How can I change or love another person above myself?

Brotherly affection is possible only as we realize when Jesus’ sacrifice becomes real in our lives-a closeness develops with one another.

Our seal of approval comes from living the life we were put on this earth to do then we can honor other by allowing them to live their unique life.

What is zeal? How do you get enthusiastic about events or people in your life? We are in Jesus and we can only obey him immediately with zeal.

Our uniqueness should set us apart from others but we need to find someone outside of ourselves to guide and help us find our purpose.

Our purpose in life is not to be preoccupied with a cause or particular view but to have a relationship with the Holy Spirit as a person.

You have a dear position in this world doing something your Creator has fitted you to do. He is able to tell you what you’re here to do in life.

Are you worried about unrequited love, the recession or the international situation? Is there hope that anyone knows how it will all turn out?

Even when we experience bad situations, we can have the confidence and belief that we are being trained somehow.

God saw all of the things that you are facing in your life — even before they ever came anywhere near you.

Do you have trouble sensing reality in prayer? Prayer is talking with God, not talking at God. You can begin to develop a relationship with God today.

The normal state of a child of God is that he lives above sin. He allows the Holy Spirit to remain in him and govern every action of his life.

A child of God prays to His Father not to persuade Him to do things for him but to find out what the Father has planned for his life.

How do you know when it is right to give someone financial help? First comes love and understanding. Commitment and direction from God will follow.

Have you ever put yourself in someone else’s place? Hospitality is laying all your resources at another person’s disposal — regarding your things as theirs.

Why does God allow people to persecute me? Perhaps the things that He is allowing them to do to me will draw me deeper into His own heart.

Do we sincerely weep when others weep — and rejoice when others rejoice? Or are we more concerned with our own interests?

How far have we strayed from showing real love? Real love is loving God and loving your neighbor in place of yourself.

You are important because the Creator has pleasure to get from you doing and being what you are that He can get from none of the rest of us.

Every evil and trial is a signal from God that he has a grace of life to give you that is new and that you have not received within yourself before.

Our society is short on patience. However, God wants us all to experience peace with the people we live with at home, school or at work.

If you leave exacting justice to God and simply love other people — whatever they do to you — God will protect you from their actions.

If someone in my life seems dedicated to making things hard for me, am I supposed to just take it and be kind? Who is my real enemy?

When people wrong us what can we do to undo the wrong or the hurt? Where does the evil come from? Is there a way to overcome it?

Civil authorities like government are needed to prevent chaos in our world. We often have trouble with self-identity because we have no concept of authority.

What about dropping out of civil society to live isolated from all evil government? Should we change government so it forces people to live rightly?

Is the government’s job to make people godly or to encourage good behavior? Would a godly government benefit society or actually have a worse result?

Is the government’s job to make people godly or to encourage good behavior? Would a godly government benefit society or actually have a worse result?

When people in government are corrupt, when the system treats us unfairly, are they really benefiting me? What about when I get a speeding ticket?

We don’t question that man has brought a lot of chaos and evil into this world. Do we have any ability to fix that? Is death to punish murder unkind?

Is paying tax a necessary evil? Why does our conscience object when we put down our “fixed” figure? Are we missing something more profound in life?

Is there a good reason to pay taxes? What is the problem with disrespect for authorities? Is there a way we can effectively change government?

Do we depend on our job for security? Are we having a hard time paying all our bills? Do we have to worry when the economy is down? Can we be secure?

How do we know if we really have faith? Is there a connection between love and faith? Is there real love? Can we afford to spend ourselves for others?

Why do I sometimes wonder if anyone loves me? Why, though everyone talks love, don’t I sense any? Will learning to love myself help me to love others?

Is the love we say real? Why do we not feel loved? Have we settled for a fake version? The basis of the universe is love that gives all for others.

Have we lost the meaning of love? Is love a feeling or is it a command? Is it practical? If we only look out for others who will look out for us?

What do world events tell us about the time? What time is it in our life? Are we still living as though we have lots of time? When will we wake up?

Wouldn’t you like to edit out all the dark parts of your life and be able to replay only the good- the parts that aren’t afraid of light?

We are meant to live in Spring-like cleanness every moment of our lives. How is this possible?

When we are at our wit’s end, how many of us find ourselves saying “Well there is nothing left to do but pray”?

Is your faith heartless and lifeless? Without a dynamic personal relationship between belief and faith the tragedy is it ends in mental legalism.

For many our faith doesn’t seem real. We think it’s just weak. The real reason isn’t weak faith, the real reason is it’s no faith only mental assent.

Is your faith like a belief game plus the religious actions? Or do you have a dynamic faith that springs from a personal trust with your Maker?

What is being weak in faith? Can we make our faith strong? Do we need more teaching? What does our faith do and what does God do?

Is there a doctor for our moral ailments? Do we go to him but then try so hard to cure our own symptoms we don’t hear his prescription?

How do we know how we ought to live? What’s behind the lives of people we admire? Have we allowed a shift in the basis of our life?

What is it that imprisons us? What destroys our happiness and freedom? Why do we always have to be right? How did we get here?

Are we all tied up by a moral list of rights and wrongs? Have we lost the freshness we once knew?

Why are we so preoccupied with what others think? How can we know what we are meant to be? Is God’s plan for each of us the same?

How can we know which way our life is meant to go? Are we getting static instead of direction?

Why try so hard to fit in? Don’t we seem to buck something in our conscience when we do? Could it be registering some reality we’ve missed?

Who are we hoping can help us make wise decisions? Can they help on what lies beyond death? Only one who has gone through death and come back can advise us on that

Do we find ourselves pointing out where others are wrong? Do we carry a load of trying to make others right? What is our responsibility?

Why does God allow wars? Why does he allow evil men to torture and kill innocent lives? Why do things go from bad to worse? Is he there? Does he know?

What will it be like to meet Jesus? What will he see in us? Will he see the way we have judged one another? Will he see a reflection of himself in us?

Where does condemnation come from? What happens when we judge others? Will they change if we don’t?

Is it important for all Christians to believe on the same things as right?

To be a Christian means we have to know we are sinners, ask for forgiveness, receive forgiveness and receive the Counselor (Holy Spirit).

Is the kingdom of God something I’ll only experience after I die — or is it available right now, in this life?

Where do you find your happiness? Does it last along time? Is there another ‘happiness that lasts a lifetime?

Do you feel a slave to bill payments, family ties, and personal possessions? Don’t you have a choice about these assets or relationships and how they affect your life?

Isn’t belief in something or someone more than just intellectual assent, more than an emotional response, more than what we can touch and see?

You leave work and go to your car in freezing weather. You turn the key and only hear clicks. That moment defines how your evening will go.

When destroying other’s self-esteems to establish our own self-righteousness, we not only incapacitate the other person but ourselves as well.

What will happen to you the moment after you die? What have you done that will count when God asks you to give an account of your life?

Are the things I do and say in daily life helping the people around me toward God — or quietly making it harder?

Stop looking at other people, seeing whether you are better than them. Be true to yourself and to God and walk in integrity to your conscience.

The big responsibility we have in life is to encourage each other to live according to our consciences and to do what our conscience tells us.

I find myself doing things against my own better judgment because others seem fine with it — does that actually matter?

If you want God to be real in your life, stop the sins that God has told you are in your life, that’s it. It’s that simple and plain.

Why don’t we believe in ALL circumstances that God loves us and is faithful? Lack of faith — is that sin?

Are we living with anxieties and fears? Are there vague things in the back of our minds that keep us from feeling free and full of joy and hope?

Do you ever have a sense of fear or apprehension or an anxiety about whether something terrible is going to happen in your life? What causes that?

What can we do when we find faults in the ones we love the most? Do we simply put up with them, or can we be patient and help them? .

Have you ever found yourself feeling not right about being critical towards others? What should our attitude be towards those less privileged then us?

We who are strong ought to bear the failings of the weak, and not please ourselves

Many of us live in a tiny world of “What might have been”, where all we can do is look back to a life of dashed hopes and unfulfilled ambitions

There seems to be something in the air these days, I don’t know where it comes from, but many of us face a real battle with discouragement.

Deep down all of us keep hoping that somehow in our relationships there will be peace and harmony. Why then are we so often disappointed?

We often have postmortems in relationships because we must find out which of us was wrong, and why we were wrong, and where we can level the blame.

If you are in a position of responsibility where you can administer a rebuke or reprove. Is it possible to do this without judging the other person?

Imagine someone you know treats you unkindly. What would happen if, in response, you wished them good instead of harm?

Hoping in the things you see around you will disappoint you. But there is a different kind of hope that is fulfilling.

The fact of Israel’s history up to our day illustrates how history and fantasy differ. Fundamental criteria for truth demonstrate what is real and what is not.

Why didn’t God stop Hitler from murdering millions? Why doesn’t he stop a man who rapes a child? Is it he is unable? Is it he is not concerned?

Do we regard evil as a necessary interruption of God’s otherwise flawless plan for us? Is that why we get irked when someone messes up our plans?

Is the worst evil pain? Is the worst evil sickness? Is the worst evil poverty? Are they the evils we need to be delivered from?

You do not have all the resources you need, you do not have all the patience you need, nor all the love you need. Where will you get them?

We can never win respect from one another. We can esteem and love one another first because God loves us all and wants to work in each of us through one another.

If a friend with 500 million dollars promised to help if you ever lost your job or needed a new car, would that change the strain in your life?

Is it possible to live as free as the birds, to have the simplicity and trust of children again?

Love must be genuine. It is what makes life work and the cement that holds all of us together. Love is to be the basic attitude governing our lives.

Is it possible to live in this world with an attitude of joy? God never gives us a command we cannot fulfill.

To rejoice is a command of God and not an option. Is there a difference between human hope and God’s hope?

If you believe that you can sin with impunity because Jesus died for you, you’re a Jew. But the gospel is that we are saved not IN our sins, but FROM our sins.

The Holy Spirit wants to give us his power for witnessing. By abiding in Jesus in obedience and love we can receive this anointing to be God’s witnesses.

True spiritual assurance comes from trusting in Christ’s finished work rather than seeking mystical experiences. This brings stability, confidence, and freedom from spiritual uncertainty.

An old theologian called Leslie said there are certain common-sense guidelines to help people to determine what is historical fact and what is subjective fantasy. There are four criteria that a fact ought to satisfy if it is a historical fact.

We cannot fulfill God's promise to us by our own efforts. It's only when we cling to Jesus in faith that a miracle can take place in us.

There must be an absolute standard in this world outside of ourselves-God. Someone who can guide us individually in all circumstances if we allow Him.

Can you be set free from the limitations of yourself and of this life?

There are only 2 responses to the gospel. We either repent, believe and obey or we don't. Rejection of the gospel results in unbelief and disobedience.

Is manipulation of people and circumstances the only way you can get what you want?

Do you try to just "get by" with God so you can get about your real life? We are meant to satisfy God first and live in total surrender to God's control.

God has consistently shown himself to be kind but he will also sever connections with those who will not trust in his kindness. Which life will you choose?

Do you feel imprisoned in the limitations of your own personality or in your own habits or your own thought patterns? Why do you exist?

Our minds have been trained to fear and please men in our jobs. It's not the work that tires and brings ulcers. What attitude should we have about work?

John Hinckley believed that his self-worth was established by other people when he shot President Reagan. What gives us self-esteem and self-worth?

You have a gift not because you are just a human being, but because you are part of your Creator. You have a special touch you can give the world.

Even in a recession, God can show us that we can do without a little less. He owns everything -- we are the stewards.

Why submit to authorities? Isn't it right to oppose bad rulers? Aren't many governments corrupt? Shouldn't we resist laws that we don't agree with?

We know what is right but don't live it. We criticize others and become resentful when others criticize us. It is our evil heart Jesus came to change

Is our faith weak? Is it getting any stronger or is it much the same as when we started? Shouldn't we see more change?

How will you survive out there in this wild world? There is power and energy available that will enable you to live in freedom and victory.

How can we know there is more to life than what our 5 senses show us? Have we found peace and rest in this world? Can someone show us how?

What have you done on earth that will be important for you the moment after you die?

God has changed you in Jesus so that you and he can walk together in this life. He loves you and wants your love in return.

We are the generation that loves instant coffee, we want everything right now. The truth is, with instant things you do not get everything right now!

Robert Louis Stevenson describes a divided human nature in story of Jekyll and Hyde. His solution is death so evil nature does not continue.

Even if we are faithless, He remains faithful. The only thing that can steal heaven from us is our believing that we are hopeless and cannot change.

Many of us think we can handle everything life throws at us, and if we fail, we are less then mature adults. This is far from the truth.

Fear comes from us trying to calculate the possibilities of getting what we need from this uncertain world. How can we live free of fear?

Disasters are actually essential. They are built into the very fabric of our world

Have you ever felt that your life was a mess? All the plans that you had, they just are not going anywhere. You feel your life is a disaster.

What is the point of life? Is there any reason for living? Can we find hope of being freed from our selfishness and self-centeredness?

If Christianity is more popular than ever, why does something feel fundamentally off about what most of us have been told the gospel is?

Do we live by a source of life within or is our life dominated by our needs and worry? Have we tried to turn it around and found it spring right back?

How do we ?be? what we know is right? How do we get beyond all the philosophizing and excuses and ?be? what we were meant to be?

Have you been on that self-improvement treadmill for years and are no better than when you started?

Righteousness isn’t morality — it’s being right with your Creator with no shadow between you. This talk explains why no external sign creates that reality, and what actually does.

The reason man is alive today is because of the love God has towards us. God gave us His Son to die for our sin and rebellion instead of us.

Sin is knowing what is right to do and not doing it. When we violate our conscience we are resisting God's Spirit within us and our life moves towards death.

I keep trying to make myself acceptable to God and can’t seem to get there — is there another way entirely?

What does it actually mean to be right with God — and am I going about it the right way?

I believe God can handle my burdens — so why do I keep taking them back and trying to carry them myself?

Israel was the most privileged group in history — and God smashed it. On three things people mistake being God’s child, and three marks that tell us we actually are.

Expecting from a partner what only God can give guarantees failure and underlies most divorces. This talk looks at what marriage looks like when God is the source.

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