Grace On Fire

Parkland School Shooting – How To Navigate Planet Death | GOF79

The Parkland School Shooting is another vivid reminder of the sickness that pervades our society. When children murder other children, we need as a nation to slow down and ask “what’s happening”? What’s going on? What are the conditions in our families, cities, and society that are leading to this kind of outcome? We then need to listen.

Questions and statements like these ultimately lead to different solutions. For the Christian, however, we need to withdraw from the debates just long enough to remember one thing. We live on planet death. So how do we navigate this planet? On today’s show, I offer my candid response to the Parkland School shooting, challenging Grace Nation to think deeply about the issues at stake.

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Anxiety – The Struggle To Embrace God’s Peace | GOF78

Anxiety sucks! I know because I’ve been there. So what are we to make of the claims in the bible about the peace of God? For many people, anxiety and depression seem to be a standard part of life. So how can we embrace God’s promise of divine peace? Well in today’s episode, I’m asking this question to help us move past the shallow responses to discover more profound truths implanted in God’s design of humanity. It turns out that modern science has a lot to say about overcoming anxiety, where merely reinforces what scripture has said all along.

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Tullian Tchividjian On Finding Grace After Your Life Has Been Destroyed | GOF77

Should we Evangelicals forgive Tullian Tchividjian? If you have any real understanding of how grace works, then the answer, of course, is “yes.” But when public figures break our trust by acting in ways contrary to their public persona, it is tough to find that requisite forgiveness we all are supposed to grant. I understand. So did Absalom — King David’s son who could never forgive his father’s disgraces. But Jesus calls us to do just that, to forgive those who hurt us. In a candid interview, Tullian opens up his heart revealing his ongoing struggles with guilt and shame tied to the impact it had on his children. He shares his desperate need for God’s grace and how the Father’s “One Way Love” is now more important to him than ever before.

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Four Limiting Beliefs That Are Holding You Back with Cliff Ravenscraft | GOF76

Do you love money? Sure, who doesn’t like having a little extra cash in their pocket! Unfortunately, man Christians struggle with faulty thinking that keeps them from pursuing creative lives in business and commerce. So how do you craft a healthy relationship with money without compromising your faith? To help me answer this question, I invited Cliff Ravenscraft to rethink money, wealth, and the pursuit of God’s call.

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How To Find Your Life Purpose | GOF75

How do you find your life purpose? Every generation asks the same questions. Why am I here? What am I doing? Where am I going? But not every person discovers the answer for themselves. That’s because we live in a world of competing views, unrealistic expectations, and broken dreams. But Life Purpose doesn’t have to be difficult to discover. You just need a place to start. So where do you begin?

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How Positive Emotions Can Actually Work Against You | GOF74

Warning! Positive emotions can be harmful to your judgment. Thoughtful people be advised. Do you think that is true? If you saw a disclaimer like this, would you automatically reject this warning or would you seek to learn more? Positive emotions, feeling good almost seems like a civil right these days. But there is more to life than just feeling good all the time. So is there a dark side to positive emotions? There is, particularly when those “feelings” can lead to poor decisions.

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How Being Ridiculously Honest With Yourself Leads to A Better Life | GOF73

Are you being honest with yourself? This question goes to the heart of most our problems in life. We are not honest because we’re afraid of the consequences of our honesty. So we lie. Not a lot but a little. We self-rationalize, compromise, and trade off the things we want most in life for safety, security, and predictability. Unfortunately, when we do this? A little piece of our heart grows cold. The only solution is to do something no one else can do for you. Be ridiculously honest. Two forms of honesty are needed — positive and negative. So ask yourself this question, “Are you being completely honest with yourself?”

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Why Gratitude Is A Game-Changer For Your Mental Health | GOF72

What if gratitude could improve your mental health? Seems too simple? Could merely learning to say thank you change your life? Probably not. But recent psychological research has revealed that it may have a more positive benefit to your well being than you might think.

This question and other first emerged thirty years ago in the field of Positive Psychology. Up to that point, research had focused on the familiar issues of mental illness: depression, anxiety, fear, etc. But what about positive mental health? Researchers sought to answer this question and came to some exciting conclusions. So what were the results? Apparently being kind to your neighbor has more benefit than mere social implications. It can actually improve your life. So how do you practice and develop a life of gratitude?

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Your Job Does Not Define You – So Who Are You? | GOF71

The most significant mistake you can make in life is to define yourself by your job. But the vast majority of people I meet do precisely that, and it costs them so much happiness. Seem a little overstated? Perhaps, but consider this scenario for just a moment. When someone asks “who are you?” What’s the first thing out of your mouth? For most of us, the answer includes some reference to what “we do.” But I think this is a trap. What happens when the market changes, how will you respond? For some people, they can successfully reinvent themselves, but for others, it is a little more difficult. That’s why it’s important to consider this issue “BEFORE” something affects your work. Also, on GOF71, I ask this question: how do you pray when you don’t know what to do?

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Five Steps To Challenging Limiting Beliefs That Are Holding You Back | GOF70

Is there something holding you back but don’t know what it is? Chances are you may be encountering what experts call limiting beliefs. They hold us back from seeking healthy and meaningful relationships. Prevent us from pursuing the next step in our careers. And they sabotage our lives when gone unchecked. Unfortunately, detecting limiting beliefs is much harder than you think. Why? Very often limiting beliefs are “controlling beliefs” that shape and form how we see the world. They are ideas that tell us how to think, and sometimes they work against us. If you dig down into yourself far enough, you may just discover some hidden ideas that are reaping massive havoc on your life. So how do you overcome these thoughts? There are at least five foundational ideas that you must accept before any real progress in life can be made.

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