Send me a Text Message!

Isn’t there something in each of us that wants to believe that our stories matter? Sometimes we call that hope. We want to believe that we are living a good story, or perhaps even better yet, we want to believe that we are part of a good story. Yet, there are chapters where it seems like we are stuck in a bad news story. Right? In our culture today, we talk more than a bit about the good life. I live in Happy Valley. How could I live anything but the good life in a place called Happy Valley? But even in Happy Valley, we have bad news stories, right?

There is a question that Jesus asks in this story. The question first to Martha is simply, "Do you believe?" You understand the resurrection is not just something to believe in, it is someone to believe. What do you believe?

Send me a Text Message!

In this series, “The Jesus Way" we are Listening to, learning from and leaning into the gospel of John; to get a better picture of what it looks like to be a Jesus-apprentice. And in this episode, we are finishing John chapter 10. But like the last episode, I’m going to start in John 10 but then wander a bit, all the way back to the Psalm 23. Why Psalm 23? Because there is a lot in John 10, about spiritual battle and a lot about Jesus being our great Shepherd. John 10 contains another one of Jesus “I am” statements. I am the great Shepherd.

And as I was reading John 10 through again, I kept thinking of Psalm 23, which is all about sheep, shepherds, and a crazy battle plan.

Send me a Text Message!

The first problem we have in discovering our identity is that we simply don't know his voice. As my friend Terry says, "We need to develop voice recognition, because we don't recognize his voice." The problem is that we've let so many other voices into our souls. We let the voices that shout lies into our hearts and miss the voice that whispers truth. Ultimately our identity is shaped by the direction of our ears.

So in this episode we'll start in John 10, but we'll spend a little bit of time in Mark 4, where Jesus tells a story about listening and the power of listening to give us a life of great impact. If you want a life of 100x impact, you need to get good at listening for His voice!