Send us Fan Mail

Two questions can stop you in your tracks, the way a guard’s shout can freeze a stranger at the wrong gate: Who are you? And what are you doing here? Ryan opens with an old story about Rabbi Akiva taking a wrong turn and ending up face-to-face with a Roman garrison. The guard calls down those two questions, and instead of brushing them off, Akiva treats them like treasure, so valuable he’d pay to hear them every morning.

That’s the heart of this reflection: identity and purpose aren’t vague “someday” topics. They’re daily essentials. We talk about why so many of us move through life distracted and half-awake, invested in work routines and small ego projects while never really examining what we’re becoming. With Socrates’ warning about the unexamined life in the background, we lean into a simple contrast: asleep versus awake. Awake means honest reflection, clear priorities, and a life that matches your values instead of your momentum.

You’ll walk away with a practical, repeatable habit: ask those two questions each day, and let the answers shape your choices before the years slip by. If this landed for you, share the episode with a friend, subscribe for more reflections, and leave a review. What’s your answer today to “Who are you?”

Join us! Facebook | Instagram | www.clcelkriver.org

Send us Fan Mail

Underneath everything we argue about, fear, chase, and try to control sits a claim that is either liberating or offensive: Jesus Christ is the center of it all. We walk through Colossians 1 and an early Christian hymn that calls Jesus the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over creation, and the One through whom all things were created. If you’ve ever wondered what God is like, we keep it simple and concrete: look at Jesus and watch how he handles power, how he treats annoying people, how he steps into suffering, and how the cross shows love from underneath rather than domination from above.

Then we move from the personal to the cosmic. Colossians says “in him all things hold together,” and we explore what it means to call Jesus the Sustainer, the “cosmic glue” that makes the universe a universe and can bring coherence to a life that feels like scattered instruments warming up in the same room. We also name the pressures the first Christians faced in Colossae, from legalism and asceticism to angel fascination and secret-knowledge spirituality, plus the real social cost of refusing to worship the local gods. The message is blunt: Christianity is Jesus plus nothing.

Finally, we lean into resurrection life. Jesus is the firstborn from the dead, the start of new creation bursting into the old world right now, and that means you are not done yet. There is forgiveness, restoration, and a steady hope for anyone carrying pain, addiction, illness, loneliness, or injustice. Next week, our friend Rob Morris from Love 146 joins us, and we’ll also hear more about their work to end child trafficking and exploitation.

Subscribe for the rest of the Colossians series, share this with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review that tells us what line you can’t stop thinking about.

Join us! Facebook | Instagram | www.clcelkriver.org

Send us Fan Mail

Easter isn’t asking you to admire a nice message about springtime. We’re talking about a claim that is either breathtakingly true or totally disruptive: Jesus is raised bodily, seen and touched, and that resurrection is the first sign that God is making everything new.

We lean into why humans ache for endings and closure, then we trace how Scripture dares to give one. Revelation 21 describes a renewed world with no more death, mourning, crying, or pain, and with God present among people. That vision is not escapism and it is not a floating-soul-afterlife. It’s resurrection, restoration, justice, and healing on a cosmic scale, a new heaven and new earth where chaos and evil don’t get to stay.

Then we sit in the tension we all feel: the future has dawned, but it’s not fully here. We still grieve real losses, face real diagnoses, and watch real destruction on the news. Christian hope doesn’t minimize any of it. It argues something sharper: the worst thing is not the last thing. Because we know the ending, we can practice resurrection right now by bringing life where things are dying, standing with people facing injustice, sharing with those in need, and doing small faithful acts that participate in the renewal of the world.

If this gave you hope or challenged you, subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find it.

Join us! Facebook | Instagram | www.clcelkriver.org