Episode 203: To Wrestle With God

If you are unsure as to whether or not you have ever wrestled with God, it is likely that you already have done so, but you likely did not know it was Him. Jacob had the same experience, and only identified God as the one who pinned Him AFTER the match was over. In our wrestling-with-God season there is both profit and pain. How we cooperate with the wrestling determines which one of these two results we live more with. If we welcome Him to pin us, He blesses us and gives us new starts and greater revelation. If we continue to fight for self, we live with a greater awareness of the pain and miss the value of the profit. This episode is going to connect so many dots for those who listen.

Episode 202: Understanding Suffering

If there is one area where it seems that Christians have strong opinions, it is the topic of suffering in the life of a believer. There are, as I mentioned, strong opinions…but who has a strong biblical grasp of the topic of suffering? Because of an out-of-bounds teaching on prosperity and health over the last four decades, there now exists a generation of Jesus-followers who have no grid of how to respond to or communicate upon the issue of suffering in the lives of faithful Christians. Today’s episode offers some counterbalance to the false notion that God has obligated Himself to prevent any and all suffering in the lives of His children. Buckle up, because this episode will take you somewhere your flesh will not wish to go.

Episode 201: Protecting Your Personal Peace

Most of the world thinks of peace as the absence of conflict. Beyond that, many of those same people assume that peace is unattainable unless that absence of conflict is their current reality. Wouldn’t it be terrible if that were true? That would mean that would be zero possibility of peace unless everything in our lives was pleasant, friction-free and easy on our souls. In this episode of Mavericks & Misfits, we will learn that peace is something that is to be prized, and especially when it is attained in the midst of real-life struggles. Because we live in a world conditioned by sin and brokenness, we will only experience spiritual peace to the degree that prioritize and pursue it. The Apostle Paul teaches us how to do exactly that as he instructs the Philippian believers to prioritize and protect peace in their own minds. We are personally responsible for our own personal peace and there are things we can do every day to either enlarge our peace or to undermine it.

Episode 200: Turn Up Your Volume

Celebrating 200 episodes of Mavericks & Misfits, Jeff goes for the jugular in this episode. Without apology, the listener will be called into a radical commitment to Word & Spirit, which was the foundational purpose of the M&M podcast. If there was ever a time to refuse to settle for mediocrity as a follower of Jesus, it is now. In this episode, Jeff challenges both evangelicals and charismatics to learn from one another and to embrace a passionate commitment to Word & Spirit. This message serves as a rekindling of the original Mavericks & Misfits flame in Episode 200.

Episode 199: Knowing Your Calling

Most Christians sincerely want to know what their life-purpose is. The American Dream is not satisfying for the Spirit-filled believer. We know we are here for more than success, pleasure, money, and comfort. Yet not all believers have discerned their purpose from God. Today’s episode supplies three components for what it means to discern and live out God’s call upon our individual lives. There is plenty of substance supplied in this episode regarding God’s assigning, defining, and refining of His call on our lives. How do receive the initial call and steward it throughout the various seasons in our lifetime? Jeff shares some of his own story along with the testimony of Amy, his bride, as he helps the listener consider their own calling from God.

Episode 198: Receiving What God Is Releasing

It may surprise you to learn that many followers of Jesus do not live with an actual awareness of who they are in Him. When we are foggy about this key piece of what it means to be God’s child, then there arises a skewing of so much of our lives. This podcast unpacks three elements that we need to become proactive in if we are to be who God desires us to be, and to do what God has purposed us to do. These three components are, Identity, Activity, and Trajectory. This episode of Mavericks and Misfits and the one that will be released after it will help you to discern your calling/assignment and to proactively live it out in a manner that never becomes attached from your identity.

Episode 197: The Silence of God

One of the greatest challenges for believers occurs when we find ourselves in a season where we cannot hear God’s voice. We read His written Word, and we know He speaks there, but Jesus did not merely say we would have His book - Jesus said that His sheep would hear His voice. We pray and it seems that God does not respond. We plead for answers, and they do not come. We feel we have endured and waited long enough, but Heaven’s silence causes our despair. We begin to believe that nobody else has ever gone through the silence of God and made it out whole. What is the Christian to do in seasons of God’s silence? Today’s podcast will help us see that this experience is common among Christians and that there a few simple instructions available to us when we are waiting for God to speak.

Episode 196: Ignorance & Impotence in the Church

The first Christians operated with two primary forces in the Church: truth and power. Apostolic doctrine (truth) and the gifts of the Holy Spirit (power) characterized all that the Church was and did in those early years. Somewhere along the line, the marriage of these two essentials experienced a divorce. The expression of the Church became one or the other, but no longer both. We need a remarriage to occur in the present day. This episode focuses on the urgent need for a recapturing of the truth of the Word of God. How do you know that what you believe is valid? Are you taking someone else’s word for it? That would be VERY risky. You may be surprised to learn from Scripture that the people who join with the Antichrist at the end of the age had one thing in common: they did not know nor love God’s truth. Listen carefully and consider the offer in today’s episode to join others in pursuing a trajectory to grow in learning and wielding God’s truth so that you live as one who is deception-proof.