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
  • Release to the Captives // Why Jesus Came for Me, Part 2

    Release to the Captives // Why Jesus Came for Me, Part 2
    Feb 3 2026
    It must be an amazing feeling for a prisoner to be set free after years of incarceration. I wonder when they step out of the prison – what that freedom looks like, tastes like, smells like. I'm not sure if you every saw that movie in the mid 90's called The Shawshank Redemption with Morgan Freeman. But it's about two men essentially who find themselves in jail, one played by Morgan Freeman is there because he committed murder, the other one is there because he's been framed. Anyhow there's a scene in the movie where the Morgan Freeman character finally gets parole after decades, and he walks out of the gate, and for the first time in a long time stands as free man. When you think about it that sort of freedom, well, it must be a huge adjustment and certainly it was for this character in the movie. Freedom is something we all want and yet somehow that sense of freedom can be so illusive, like a mirage painted by the advertising industry, you see it but when you get there it's gone. Why did Jesus come for you and for me? What's the relevance of his trip to earth for thirty something years? I mean the real here and now relevance, that's the question that we're exploring on A Different Perspective this week. It's one thing to talk about God, it's one thing to talk about Jesus, about the cross, about all the things Jesus did, but why did He do them? What was the point? We sometimes have a picture of God which is rules or a stain glass window or being old-fashioned but let's go straight to the source. Let's have a look, as we are right through this week on the program, at what Jesus said about the reason that He came. One of the very first times that He stood up to speak publicly He read from an Old Testament book called the book of Isaiah, and He read this about himself, He said: The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he's anointed me to preach the good news to the poor, he sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind. To release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour. Yesterday we looked at the good news for the poor. Today, we're going to look at the second of the reasons which is, to proclaim freedom for the prisoners. Now that Morgan Freeman character in the Shawshank Redemption, if we put ourselves into his shoes for a minute he spent decades in prison, I can't begin to comprehend one or two nights in prison, this character spent decades in prison. When you think about it, the walls of that prison, the big grey stone walls, were his world for decades. The advances over ten and twenty and thirty years on the outside in technology and society and just the way we live, you think of the things that have happened just over the last thirty years. Automatic teller machines, the way we do shopping, the way we use credit cards, televisions, DVD's, video's, the list goes on it's just a massive amount of change. But he could not imagine what was going on in the outside because his world was purely the routine, the politics, everything to do with what was going on inside that prison. You'd loose sight of all of that outside stuff. Life would be dominated just by the guards and the power struggles and the grey walls. And every night when those bars locked closed in the cell and clang closed that would be just a way of life, day after day after day it's the norm, you'd stop noticing. I mean to maintain your sanity you'd actually have to resign yourself to the fact, just to stay sane. Freedom, well what's freedom, what does that look like, what's that like? What about in our lives? What are the bars, the prison walls, the routine that lock us away from a full rich abundant life? Whether it's the things we do everyday at work or at school or maybe you're someone who stays at home, the routine, the humdrum, the relationships that we're in day after day after day. Maybe the deep sense of our own failures. People have addictions, people have an acute sense of their own limitations. Before I met this Jesus I had it all. I was so well off with a house and a car and job and a career and future and a family, truly I had it all, but it still felt like a prison. What was it, why, what was going on? It's not that I was a rotten person but looking back on it now from the outside looking in, it was all about me. And as I reflect on that I discover that 'I' was my prison, "I" the "me" was the walls that locked me away from that abundant life. The ads on TV promise freedom, cars, holidays, but when I drove the car or went on the holiday I didn't feel free, does that makes sense? My world was inside the bars and the walls of my own selfishness, each wall had "me" written on it, me, me, me, me. And looking at the world from in there, well, what was freedom? What did freedom look like, what did it feel like, what did it taste like? Didn't matter where I went I didn't feel free, even though I had everything. And Jesus comes along and says, "That's why I came for you, to set...
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  • Good News for the Poor // Why Jesus Came for Me, Part 1

    Good News for the Poor // Why Jesus Came for Me, Part 1
    Feb 2 2026
    Most of us like to watch the news, or listen to it on the radio, or read the newspaper. But really, there's precious little good news these days. It all seems to be bad news, especially for the poor. But Jesus said that He had good news for the poor. So what did He mean? One of the little rituals that I love to perform every night is to watch the evening news on television. It's just, I don't know, my way of unwinding for the day and I guess it's my way of finding out what's been going on at home and around the world. But have you noticed whether you watch it on TV or listen to it on the radio or read it in the newspaper, there's actually precious little good news. Generally the news starts with the biggest conflict or natural disaster or court case or murder or car accident and it just goes down hill from there. In fact when they drop in the odd piece of good news we say, "What have they run out of news tonight?" But we do need good news too. In fact truth be known we desperately want good news. Good news about ourselves, our lives, who we are, but where do you get that? Have you ever wondered, this whole Jesus story, this whole Jesus thing, if its true why did Jesus, the Son of God, step out of heaven, become a little baby, become a boy, become a teenager, become a man, wander around for three and a half years preaching all sorts of stuff, healing people and then allow himself to be killed on a cross and rise again? Why did He do that? I had an email recently from someone who visited our website www.christianityworks.com and she said, "Look, Jesus, Buddha, Mohamed I mean they're really all the same, just pick one and get on with it." The big difference between Jesus and all those other guys is that firstly, Jesus made a unique claim. Jesus said, "I AM God." The other's pointed somewhere else, Jesus didn't, Jesus said, "you're looking at Him, I've arrived!" And the second difference is, that Jesus said, "Look being a Christ follower, being a Christian, believing in Me is not about working hard and becoming a better person so that you become acceptable to God." Effectively, that's what all the other religions say. Jesus said, "No, no, here look at Me, I'm going the cross to die for you so that you can be forgiven, I'll pay for your sins, I'll fulfil the righteous requirements of God's law and I will pay. And all you need do is believe in me and I will help you to have a new life, and yes new life is about change, new life is about regeneration, new life is about getting rid of the rubbish, but it's not the starting point. The starting point is the grace of God on the cross of Christ." But is it authentic, I mean why did He come? Is there something real here and now that's going to make a difference? Gospel, the word gospel literally means "the good news" – is it? Jesus was born in Bethlehem; He fled as a little baby with His parents to Egypt because they tried to kill Him. Then He moved to Nazareth in Galilee which is kind of "Hicksville" and at age thirty Jesus began His public ministry. One of the very first times that He spoke publicly He got up in a Synagogue in His own home town in Nazareth of Galilee, and He quoted something that the prophet Isaiah had written a long time before. He read this from the scrolls in the synagogue. He said, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recover sight for the blind and to release the oppressed and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour." Now effectively by reading this, what He was saying to all those Jews who were sitting in that synagogue and very clearly and very unmistakably was, "I am the Messiah, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me and God has sent me to do these things. Why have I come? To preach good news to the poor, to proclaim freedom for prisoners, the recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour." Now there's an opportunity in that for you and for me. And so this week we're going to be looking at those five reasons, those five promises that Jesus made about why He came. Then you can make your own mind up about this Jesus, do those reasons make it worth while for me to just live my whole life for God? And today we're looking at the first of those which is, good news for the poor. The poor literally were lonely and afflicted in the first century as in many places in the world today there was no social welfare in Israel. I've a vivid recollection of going to San Francisco and seeing a black man with blood streaming down his head begging outside the McDonald's store and he looked at us and he said, "Just because I'm black doesn't mean I'm a bum." And in India I remember seeing a woman begging and she had a little baby strapped to her, the shop keeper where she was begging came out and chased her away with a stick and beat her across the back. Two thirds of this world live in ...
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  • From the Inside Out // Worship as a Way of Life, Part 5

    From the Inside Out // Worship as a Way of Life, Part 5
    Jan 30 2026
    Believe it or not, God has this edgy, amazing plan to change us on the inside through His love and mercy and grace ... and then for that to work its way to the outside – in what we say and do. That's the plan. I love meeting people where what I see is what I get. The person that I see on the outside is the person who they are on the inside even, you know, if they're a bit abrasive on the outside at least you know what you're getting. It's the people who pretend to be one thing to your face and then they go around behind your back and tell other people what they really think, they're the ones I feel really uncomfortable with. There's a certain hypocrisy about being one thing on the outside and another thing entirely on the inside and you know something I think it's the same with our spirituality too. Telling God one thing in our hearts and then doing another thing with our hands, well it just doesn't sit well. Jesus was only really tough on two things, a lack of faith and religious hypocrisy and you know something, fair enough too. We're talking this week about the fact that what's happening on the outside needs to match what's happening on the inside. You know if we are living one thing in our hearts and another thing out there in public where people can see us, it just doesn't work, you know there's a disconnect, a mismatch and we can't live that out forever. If inside we worship God in our hearts, "God I lay down my life for you, I bow down, I delight in you, I love you, I worship you", but then on the outside we don't live that out, well this incongruity, this mis-match, it's called hypocrisy. What you see is not what you get. Over this week we've seen that worship begins in the heart, it's like a man and a woman falling in love and marrying and they go through ups and downs and there are good days and bad days but you know something, in my heart my wife Jacqui is always there, I love her no matter what today brings and it's the same in our relationship with God, worship begins in the heart. We saw the other day the story of Mary and Martha where Jesus came to their house and Martha was so busy racing around doing stuff she missed out on what Jesus was saying and doing, whereas Mary, her sister, just sat at His feet and listened and soaked it all in and worshipped Him. We can just run around doing stuff and doing stuff and doing stuff for God but you know if we keep doing that we end up dry and its hard work and we lose heart for the Lord. But the reverse is also true. I mean, people go to Church on Sunday and they worship God and they sing all those wonderful songs but then, if that's all we do, if we never actually get out and serve God, well that's not going to work either or if we go and tear someone's head off at work on Monday morning. You see this incongruity between what's happening on the inside and what we do on the outside? Its adulterous, it's professing one thing and doing another and eventually we have to resolve this conflict, eventually we have to say, "well which one is it going to be? Is it going to be what I want to do in my heart and what I'm saying to God there or is it going to be how I'm living my life? I ultimately have to resolve this." So either we bring our lives into line with what's happening in our hearts or we abandon what's been going on in our hearts, in worshipping God and we go with the desires of the flesh. It's as simple as that; it's one or the other. The apostle Paul knew that and he wrote it really well in Romans, chapter 12, verse 1. This is what he says: Therefore, I urge you brothers and sisters because of God's mercy to offer your bodies as living sacrifices holy and pleasing to God. This is your act of spiritual worship. Now let's just unpack that for a minute or two. He begins with therefore and therefore always points back to something else and in this case he's pointing back to the first 11 chapters of the Book of Romans which is all about God's goodness in coming to rescue us through Jesus Christ. You know if you are ever in any doubt that you can be forgiven by God and that God loves you and that God wants to change your life, if you ever doubt that, do me a favour, pick up a Bible and read the first 11 chapters of the Book of Romans and that's the stuff that causes our heart to get on fire for God, that's the stuff that causes us to worship Him, it's the heart stuff. So Paul's saying here because of what He's done in your heart, because of that mercy that you've received deep in your heart, because of that, offer your bodies as living sacrifices. Here Paul is saying because of what's happened in your heart, translate that into action. Now living sacrifices, well what a gruesome picture, I mean it's definitely not a good marketing spin, these people used to sacrifice animals on altars. These people used to watch the Romans crucify men and women but they knew what sacrifice was all about. And you know when we decide to follow Jesus, it's a sacrifice...
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