What are you searching for? In this episode of Live the Bible, we get real practical— on an emotional level— and if we’re honest, that’s where we tend to live most of the time. The world is desperately searching for happiness, and in their search they often miss Joy.
Where do we find it? Psalm 126 tells us.
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Have you noticed how history repeats itself in our lives? We think we’ve learned to deal with overwhelming anxiety, but each new day offers a new challenge we never would have expected.
(Photo: The Harod Valley. Courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)
In ancient Israel, the Harod Valley gave stage to two sets of desperate situations. From threats to insecurities to death and hopelessness, in every case the overwhelming anxiety found its peace only one way.
It’s the same with your overwhelming anxiety today.
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Sometimes it seems the Lord allows way too much pain in our lives. In this episode of Live the Bible, we fasten our seatbelts and take a look at the most miserable man in the Bible—Job.
If you’ve ever wondered where God is in your struggles, I think you’ll find the verses of Job, frankly, as encouraging as they are surprising!
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How do you find the courage to face a fearful situation? In this episode of Live the Bible, we look at the life of one of the most courageous women in the Bible—Esther. Don’t think that just because she was a queen that she didn’t struggle just like us. She did!
Esther shows us the confidence we can have in God’s sovereignty becomes the reason for our courage to do what’s right.
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How do we keep from going back to the old life? In this episode of Live the Bible, we journey to Jerusalem with Nehemiah where he rebuilds the wall. But more importantly, Nehemiah continued what Ezra had done to rebuild the people and help them keep the changes they had made in their lives.
How do we keep the change we want in our lives? Nehemiah shows us.
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Being stuck at home these days compares little to suffering under a siege in an ancient city. But the lessons it offers us are very much the same. That’s probably why I have had numerous members of my Walking the Bible Lands videos suggest I make this video available to you. The encouraging truth it offers rings as true today as it did thousands of years ago.
![[VIDEO] Our Current Crisis and Jerusalem's Walls and Gates](https://waynestiles.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/VIDEO-Our-Current-Crisis-and-Jerusalems-Walls-and-Gates.png)
In ancient Israel, a city wasn’t a city without a wall. Even in Jerusalem, a wall served as the primary means of protection from an enemy. The city walls of Jerusalem serve as a fitting metaphor for what God often does in our lives when we erect walls to keep Him out.
But God lays siege to our lives not to destroy us, but to restore us.
How well do you guard your source of truth? In this episode of Live the Bible, we look at God’s “Water Gate” in Jerusalem. That’s not a political term, but a gate that walled off and protected the water source.
At this gate, Ezra gave a challenging message to God’s people that we need to hear as well. We also need to guard our time with the source of our sustenance—God’s Word.
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God never promised us the Christian life would shield us from the temptation of popularity, greatness, or admiration. In fact, don’t we often toy with getting what we want out of life just like the world does?
(Photo: The road up to Jerusalem from Jericho. Courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)
On His way up to Jerusalem for the last time, Jesus once told His followers that greatness is a fine goal to pursue. In fact, He applauded it.
As long as we understand what true greatness is.
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What do you do when trusting God is all you have? In this episode of Live the Bible, we look at a king we don’t often hear much about. Asa had faith, but he struggled to put that faith into his life. Asa is a great reminder that when God shows up in one area of our lives, it’s just a sampler of the fact that he can show up in every area.
Our Christian life is where we walk by faith and not by sight. This podcast will show us how.
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These unusual days in which we find ourselves homebound reflect, in a way, Paul’s days under house arrest in Rome. Our home isolation amounts to a couple of months. But Paul’s incarceration lasted two years.
(Photo: Insula in Rome by Lalupa/Public domain)
In Rome today stands an apartment from the 1st-2nd century, roughly the time of Paul’s first imprisonment in the city. These types of quarters, called insula, were literally everywhere in Rome. This insula offers an example of the “rented quarters” Paul would have lived in during his two years of house arrest.
The book of Acts refers to Paul’s time under house arrest as amazingly productive.
His time also offers us a example of our own unprecedented opportunity during these unusual days of home seclusion.
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