A Different Perspective Official Podcast Podcast Por Berni Dymet arte de portada

A Different Perspective Official Podcast

A Different Perspective Official Podcast

De: Berni Dymet
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God has a habit of wanting to speak right into the circumstances that we're travelling through here and now; the very issues that we each face in our everyday lives. Everything from dealing with difficult people … to discovering how God speaks to us; from overcoming stress … to discovering your God-given gifts and walking in the calling that God has placed on your life And that's what these daily 10 minute A Different Perspective messages are all about.Christianityworks Cristianismo Espiritualidad Ministerio y Evangelismo
Episodios
  • Be Still and Know // A Time of Refreshing in My Life, Part 2

    Be Still and Know // A Time of Refreshing in My Life, Part 2
    Nov 18 2025
    The last thing that most of us suffer from is a lack of information – the whole world is screaming for our attention. Sometimes, the quiet assurance that comes from a bit of peace and quiet just eludes us. Sometimes, it feels like we live in our world where everything and everybody seems to be screaming for our attention. Take advertising – armies of creative people who think up new, (often), very clever ways of getting you and me to buy their client's products. The supermarket where Jacqui and I go shopping has large advertising stickers glued to the floor in some of the shopping aisles. So many people have the TV blaring every minute of every waking hour. So many people go to work, lurch from one meeting to another, without a break, without time to stop and reflect. Our senses are being bombarded with thousands of messages and signals and … ideas and requests and directions, EVERY DAY! And without knowing it, it ends up being a huge weight that we carry around. No wonder so many people are so exhausted. If only we can only put the weight down and take a break for a while. And then keep on going. It's true, isn't it? The more that technology – like phones and then mobile phones and PCs and internet, TVs, DVDs and radio, all that stuff has made entertainment and information so accessible – the more we become slaves to them. The more the cars replace public transport; we do this point to point rushing thing instead of, I don't know, standing waiting for a bus for 5 or ten minutes at the bus stop. There is some real upsides to all of those things. I mean I love the fact that I can watch T.V. and people can contact me on my mobile phone, it's so convenient. But we've lost something … we've lost the time. I don't know, just to stop and think, to rest the senses, to rest the mind, to rest the spirit, to reflect, to imagine, to dream. And the problem with so much of the stuff that we take in as entertainment or communication, a lot of it is really negative. You watch the news at night and 95% of the news is pretty negative. A lot of it is really frivolous (in sitcoms) on TV at night. Well, there's nothing wrong with one sitcom, but if 70% of our entertainment is a diet of sitcoms, is it any wonder that people feel empty? That there is shallowness, that there is something missing? Some of the stuff that comes across as fact or entertainment, to put it bluntly, is downright destructive. It's like eating bad food or sweets all the time. Now that's our condition, that's what's going on. But there's a flip side. So many people, so many of us believe in God. Surveys in the west say, 70+% believe in God. But I wonder whether it's a real relationship, a real thing in life. Or whether for a lot of people, it's a kind of, (I don't know), a pie in the sky, when I die type – of distant sort of faith thing. And we have this belief or this faith, on the one hand. And we have this whole need for rest and for peace and for joy and for wholeness, on the other. But a lot of people just never connect those two things. Never occurs to sometimes ask, to connect those two things in life. One of the things I love about the Hebrew culture is that they think and they speak in pictures. A few thousand years ago, there was a little passage written in book of Psalms in the Bible, Psalm 46. And the writer wrote something like this: Even when the earth is shaking and the mountains are falling into the sea. Even though the waters are roaring and foaming. Even though the nations are in uproar and the kingdoms are tottering. Even in the middle of all that, God has something to say. The beautiful picture, and the Hebrew nation, those people were not a sea fearing people. So the idea of mountains falling into the ocean and waters roaring and foaming, well, that was a real fear – turmoil thing. And the writer says, "In the middle of all the fear and turmoil that life brings, God has something to say with a voice that melts that all away." It is like a river of gladness running through a city, with a power that stops wars and calms oceans. God has something to say into that condition and it's this … "Be still and know that I am God." In that big cacophony of noise that we call life – where everyone is screaming at us and yelling at us. And things are happening and mountains are falling into the ocean, and people are criticising us and the entertainment is blaring at us, in the middle of all of that … a still, small, powerful voice, whispers into our hearts with unmistakable power ... "Be still and know that I am God. Just stop and pause for a minute. And in the depths of your soul, right, right, deep down where you live, know that despite all the turmoil that you see around you, I am God and I am in control. I am here. I am with you. And I have the power to bring you peace." With that one small statement, God connects one of our deepest needs – the need for peace, for quiet, for assurance – with the spiritual ...
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    10 m
  • Now's the Time // A Time of Refreshing in My Life, Part 1

    Now's the Time // A Time of Refreshing in My Life, Part 1
    Nov 17 2025
    Getting some balance back in our lives is a challenge for a lot of people. Either we're doing too much or not enough and somehow, life's out of kilter. What we need is some refreshment for our souls. I don't know about you but one of the things that many people struggle with is getting a sense of balance in their lives. Either life's just so crazy and hectic that we seem to be burning the candle at both ends and eventually we burn out or for other people life's really, really quiet, lonely perhaps. All lifestyle magazines push this whole "life balance" thing, great cooking, meals with friends, exotic holidays, happy families. And then you go and look at that stuff and go, "hang on a minute, my life doesn't look like that" and we feel even worse. What we all need at some point, in fact daily I think, is a time of refreshing, you know to renew our strength, to lift us up, to breath some joy into our souls. My wife Jacqui and I, we're a bit like that, we're working really hard at the moment and just the last few months have been really tough from a ministry and a work perspective. Now on the one hand it's a real joy and a pleasure. We get to work together, we get to do something that touches peoples lives and it's great. But when you're working long and hard, day after day after day, it takes it's toll doesn't it? In a sense ministry should be easy, well in a sense it is. So often I'm really tired. And in fact as I was preparing for today, to share this message with you, I was really tired. I was overseas last week in the USA so the time difference was knocking me around and yet God put a real holy ease, He was there. He blessed me and He just made it work for me. But the flip side of that is running a ministry, it's a tough gig. There's fundraising and managing staff and producing content and I'm writing a book at the moment and reporting to the board. All of these things that people don't see and yet they're essential to doing what it is that I do. You have the same, you have things in your life that people see and there's a whole bunch of other things that they don't see but that are grinding, that are hard work sometimes and so Jacqui and I said, "Look it's really time for a break". Now every now and then, maybe two or three times a year, we grab a weekend away somewhere just to have a rest. But we thought, "no, we really need a break". So just recently we booked a holiday in a place called, Lord Howe Island. If you haven't heard of Lord Howe it's a beautiful island about two hours flight from Sydney in Australia. It's world heritage listed, only 250 visitors are allowed on the island at once. There are no theme parks or theatres or tacky pinball parlours. It's a world heritage listed spectacular island. Soaring mountains, (I think the mountains soars six thousand feet up out of the ocean bed), beautiful beaches, virgin forests, lagoons. It's hard to think of a more, well idyllic setting and I have to tell you something, we are really looking forward to it. There's something about rest and beauty, a sense of anticipation, a change in scenery, getting away. We all yearn for that and there's nothing wrong with that. You bring rest and real beauty together and you know, it just refreshes the soul. It brings us back to life. It does something that renews us inside. And if we have a busy life, we actually need to plan those things. We need to decide to set aside the time, to invest the dollars and go and have a holiday and maybe if we have a quiet, lonely life, "I won't go on my own, it's not worth it", what rubbish. Maybe if you're in that camp you just need some motivation. When I was coming back from America last week I flew via Tahiti. It was just the airfare I was able to get and I was sitting next to a woman between Los Angeles and Tahiti and she was going to Tahiti on her own. and she said, "Look, I've been working hard. I've been really busy and I've just decided to take a holiday and have a rest". Good on her, I think that's what we all need to do at some point. This week on A Different Perspective we're looking at this whole issue of refreshing. We all need times of refreshing so we're going to look at it over the next few days, just from different angles, different perspectives. It's great to plan a holiday but what about refreshment right in the middle of life. I mean in the daily cut and thrust, in the grind, in the every day, here and now. If we spend all of our time looking forward to escaping, "I hate my job, I hate the grind…" Here's a thought, if God is God, if God put us here, shouldn't day to day life be, I don't know, something to enjoy? I don't mean a 24x7 cocktail party, that's not realistic, life's not like that. It's not all bubbly and fruity and wonderful every day. But as we live our life through our family, through our responsibilities, through our work, through our recreation, shouldn't there be, I don't know, a deep sense of joy and satisfaction? I often get to Friday ...
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    10 m
  • The Skilled Surgeon // The Spirit and The Word, Part 5

    The Skilled Surgeon // The Spirit and The Word, Part 5
    Nov 14 2025
    It's amazing how thoroughly we manage to delude ourselves about our own failings and weaknesses. We're actually pretty darned good at it. But God is a skilful surgeon capable of performing radical surgery. This week on the program, we've been looking at intimacy with God through His Spirit and His Word. And when you think about it, those are the two things of Himself that He has left here on this planet for you and me. His Spirit – God Himself, with a promise that if we believe in Jesus, He will make His home in us, dwell in us when we put our faith in Him. And His word – the Bible. I so often see people cringe when I mention that book. But as we've been exploring this week, this is the most amazing and awesome love letter God's left here for you and for me. Through His Spirit (we open that book), He speaks to us in the most direct and intimate and extraordinary way. And sometimes when we open that book and read it through His Spirit, it's like holding up a mirror to who we are. And I don't know about you but sometimes I don't actually like what I see in that mirror. Let's not kid ourselves. When things aren't going well, when we're under pressure, we blame everyone else. He did this; she said that; if he hadn't done this, I wouldn't have blown up in his face, you know the sort of stuff. It's amazing how much more quickly we'll forgive ourselves than we forgive other people. We are so quick to rationalise our own failures and yet to blame others for theirs and even ours. And the longer we delude ourselves about the things that we're doing wrong or our bad character traits or our bad habits or our anger or our fear or our insecurities, the more they're going to ruin not only our lives but also the lives of people around us. There's a great passage in Hebrews in the New Testament. The book of Hebrews chapter 4, verses 12 and 13, says this: The word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides the soul from the spirit, the joints from the marrow. It's able to judge the thoughts and the intentions of the heart and before God no creature is hidden but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account. Boy, that's bad news isn't it? Who wants to read God's word? Sharper than any two-edged sword, it pierces, it divides the spirit from the soul, the joints from the marrow, it judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart. No, thanks. I'll give that a miss, I think. I'll pass. But it's only bad news if we want to hang on to the bad stuff. If you or I want to hang on to our dishonesty, our critical spirit, our nasty attitudes or whatever, then this bit about God's word is bad news. But if we want to be set free from this stuff, it's fantastic news. In other words, we read God's word and it's like a mirror, it judges the intentions of the heart. It lays everything bare, it lays everything open. We can see in there where our intentions are wrong – where the way we think is wrong or hurting us or hurting other people and it happens to me all the time. When we let God do that, when we go to God's word and open it up and say, "Dear Holy Spirit, you wrote this thing. Will you now open it up for me, will you now hold it up, will you pour into my heart, will you show me who I am through your word"? When we let God hold His mirror up to our faces it changes us. Let me give you an example …there's a story about a woman caught in adultery. And the religious leaders whip up the crowd and they drag her out in front of Jesus for a good old-fashioned stoning. And it wasn't because of what she did; they were trying to trick Him. Jewish religious law prescribed that a person caught in adultery should be stoned to death. But Roman law, (remember at this point in the first century Rome had occupied the land of Israel), Roman law said, they weren't allowed to do that anymore. So whichever way Jesus answered, He'd lose. So Jesus pauses and squats down and doodles in the sand. Then He looks everyone in the eye, one by one, and He says: Whichever of you has never sinned, you pick up the first stone, you cast the first stone. (John 8:7) And one by one they all drift away. They all go embarrassed because they know that none of them can say that they have never sinned. And He's left alone with her and He says: "Woman, is there no-one left to condemn you?" And she says, "No-one sir.' And He says, 'Then neither do I condemn you. Go, go and sin no more." (John 8:10-11) That is brilliant isn't it? But I remember reading that and it was as though God's spirit was holding a mirror up to my face. God's spirit spoke to me and said, "You know Berni, the way you think, the way you act, you would have been one of the people in that crowd." And it was true ... I was so judgemental, I was so critical, I was so ready to jump down peoples' throats and tell them what they were doing wrong. And here I was reading God's word and through this beautiful story of ...
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    10 m
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