Walking Points: Reflections, Next Steps, and Encouragement for Your Journey with Jesus

Today is the beginning of Advent Season. Join me as we travel through this season reflecting on our Lord's first advent and how we are called to live in light of it as well as how our we must live in continual preparation for his second advent.

To grow strong, high, and flourish your roots have to go deep. When we're rooted and built up in Christ, we're able to bear much good and lasting fruit for Christ and his Kingdom. How do we get to that point? That's what we'll be talking about today. Thanks for joining me for this episode.

How does God help us grow, mature, and become the men and women he created, redeemed, and called us to be? One way is: "trials of many kinds." But what does that mean? What do those trials look like? How can we persevere? Those are some of the things we'll be reflecting on together in this episode. Thanks for stopping by.

Today is an abbreviated episode of the Sunday morning "weekly reset." I'm excited to tell you about a new Advent devotional coming out soon for the wonderful hope-filled season of Advent. Join me on this brief episode to get those details.

Today we continue our discussion of the catechism of the Global Methodist Church. Our focus today is on the Trinity, which, as you will discover, is not a topic one can comprehensively cover in such a short time. But we hope our conversation will get you thinking more about what it means to say Christians are "Trinitarian" and why that matters. Thanks for stopping by.

What does it mean, practically speaking, to say that Jesus Christ is Lord? Is he Lord of just the religious stuff? Is he Lord only on certain days of the week or times of day? Today, let's take a look and try to better understand what it means to declare, believe, and practice the claim that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Get your day and week off to a good start by spending time with me in prayer and thinking about all the things we have to be grateful for... and the many ways God has blessed us and we, in turn, might be a blessing to others.

Today we tackle the first two questions of the Global Methodist Church catechism, which focus on the God who has revealed himself to us... the God who wants us to know, love, worship, and follow him. Thanks for checking out the podcast today.

Have you been running on spiritual and emotional fumes lately? God has given us his Word to revive our souls and give us renewed life and wisdom. Join me today as we reflect upon what this might look like in our lives. How good God is to reveal himself to us in and through his Word.

I hope this time of prayer will bless you as you prepare for today and this week. I pray the Lord will fill you with his presence throughout this time and lavish you with grace. Thanks for stopping by.

What is a catechism? Why do churches use catechisms? How can it be a helpful discipleship tool for individuals and churches? Those are some of the questions we'll be talking about in today's episode.

Today we finish up our discussion of what loving God and others really looks like. And, just as important, why we ought to love God and others in the first place. Love is more than a slogan, bumper sticker, or social media post... it's an intentional, volitional, practical, sacrificial expression of having another person's best interest at heart, even at the cost of your own. Thanks for stopping by and checking out today's episode.

What is love? What does it look like? How should it be expressed? Where does it come from? Those will be some of the questions we begin to talk about in today's episode.

Let's walk together through a time of prayer, in which we praise God, confess our sin, thank God for his goodness, and bring our deepest needs and concerns to him. Thanks for joining me on the journey today.

Today we finish up our discussion on what it means to live wisely and how to go about pursuing it and putting it into practice. So, if you want to grow in the art of living well, check out yesterday's and today's episodes and reflect with me on what it means to live wisely. As always, thanks for checking out the podcast. Make sure to subscribe! Have a great day.

In today's episode we're going to take a close look at what it means to live carefully, intentionally, and on purpose. This is the wise life God calls us to live, a life that is growing in the likeness of Christ. It's not easy, but it's the life for which we were created and redeemed and to which we are called. Thanks for stopping by.

Join me as we spend time with God and prepare for the week ahead with this "weekly reset."

As we begin our new feature of "ask the pastors" we thought it would be a good idea to first "meet" the pastors as well as provide a little context for what kinds of questions we hope you will feel comfortable asking. Thanks for stopping by.

What does it look like to become the man God has created, redeemed, and called you to be? How can you get there? That's what we'll be exploring in today's episode. And by the way, this is a word of encouragement for men and not another message beating up on men. I hope men will find it a helpful and positive word of how they can become the men our world desperately needs today. Thanks for checking out today's episode.

Our faith in God does not prevent hard times from coming our way or cause them to not be genuinely hard times. But, our faith reminds us that the God we trust is the One who promised to never leave us nor forsake us. He is the One who loves us and has our best interest at heart. And because he has promised to always be with us, we can have courage. Our courage is not in ourselves but in the God we know, love, trust, and follow. Let's think about these things together. Thanks for stopping by.

Come spend time with me in a time of prayer as we prepare for a new day and a new week. There's no better way to start both than spending time with the One who loves us and has our best interest at heart.

In this episode we finish up our series on cultivating the mind of Christ by running down every rabbit trail and throwing in everything else, including the kitchen sink. From Stoicism to the spiritual disciplines, we discuss how all this relates to wisdom and the mind of Christ.

On this week's "Godly Manhood" episode of Walking Points, we're going to be considering something that applies to both men and women: spiritual friendship. Having those who invest themselves into our lives is a tremendous blessing. Pouring your life into another's life is more rewarding than you can imagine. And having a friendship of mutual encouragement, support, and accountability is one of the most precious gifts we can give and receive. Join me as we think about what it means to be a "Paul, Barnabas, and Timothy." Thanks for stopping by.

While you're here, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast and click "like." Why in the world would we ever return to dead-end ways of life once we've been liberated from them? That's what we're discussing on the podcast today as well as how we can stay on track in the new life that God desires us to enjoy! Thanks for stopping by.

Come spend some time with me in prayer with God as we reflect on his goodness and grace in our lives.

In today's episode, David Preston and I discuss how cultivating the mind of Christ is ultimately all about discipleship. How can the mind of Christ help us follow Jesus more faithfully in every sphere of life and build up Christ's church by serving it? That's a little of what we'll be talking about in today's episode. Thanks for checking it out.

Join me in the mission. What mission? The mission for one hundred godly men? God has called us to make kingdom-minded and kingdom-hearted disciples of all the world, and that includes men. But what article after article point out is that men, and young men in particular, are searching for identity, affirmation, values, purpose, meaning, and more in other places than church. The "online gurus" who may not have selected that moniker for themselves have nonetheless become the place young men are going to learn and grow. Nature abhors a vacuum, and if men in the church are abdicating their roles and responsibilities, then others will take their place. So, join me on this mission to find 100 godly men who will pour their lives into others for the sake of Christ and his Kingdom. Today's episode will hopefully share encouragement and hope that God will bless our efforts.

What does it mean to follow Jesus? Why would Jesus tell us to "count the cost" before becoming his disciple? What is he including? Can't I keep some things just for me and give him the rest? What does it mean to submit to him as my Lord? These and other questions are what we'll be thinking abut together in this episode. Thanks for stopping by.

Let's spend some time today with God and one another as we reset and prepare together for worship and the week before us.

Today picks up where last Tuesday's podcast left off. Why should Christians reach out to men? Why should churches have ministries to men? In today's world, younger generations of men are going outside the walls and influence of the church to seek wisdom. Many fine thinkers are rightly diagnosing the issues young men (and not-so-young men) are wrestling with, but their prescriptions, while not completely wrong, fall short of what biblical truth and gospel transformation can do in the life of a man... of any age. Join me today as I reflect on why and how we ought to reach out to men for the sake of Christ and his Kingdom.

What better way to reset and prepare for the day and week than by spending time with God. Join me in prayer as we spend precious time with the One who loves us. By offering God our adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and praying for others, we have the blessed opportunity to draw close to God. And don't forget to listen for God's voice in the midst of your time with him. Don't do all the talking. We need to be still and listen and "just be" in his presence. You can find the outline for this time of prayer at my website, daletedder.com.

The mind of Christ is a mind that has an eternal perspective. It's a mind that seeks to put others first by serving their needs. It's a mind that finds ways to express the love and grace of God to others and seeks to extend God's Kingdom. It's the mind of those who deny themselves, pick up their crosses daily, and follow Christ. It's the mind we are called to cultivate so we may serve others. Thanks for stopping by. I pray our conversation will bless you.

What a privilege and blessing to spend personal, intimate time with the God of the whole universe. We are able to do just that because of God's love poured out upon us through the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. His mediating work on the Cross has made a way for us to be able to draw close to God in prayer. May the Lord bless you as you reflect on how he loves you, all he has done, is doing, and has promised to do... as well as your concerns and the needs of others.

The word "disciple" literally means "learner." As disciples of Jesus Christ, we are called to be learners of Jesus - his way, his word, his will, and his world. He has been given authority over heaven and earth... and everything that exists was created by him, for him, and through him. In fact, everything is continually sustained by him. That means everything we learn can be used for his glory if we are intentional. We can take things we're interested in... or things we always wanted to study but never made time for... and prayerfully consider how we might learn more about them and use them to glorify God and bless others. We need to keep on learning... learning Jesus.

This bonus episode is a sermon I preached yesterday at Southside Methodist Church (www.smcjax.org). Our church is beginning a sermon series on what it means to be Methodists. I was blessed to kick things off in the series and share a little about how much the early church and John Wesley had in common regarding the world in which they lived and ministered, and how they went about declaring the Gospel and advancing the Kingdom. It's the same call we have today. Enjoy this bonus episode and have a great day!

Do you ever find yourself struggling to trust Jesus? To trust God in the midst of difficult times or tough decisions? Today's episode is about how we can "take Jesus at his word" and trust him through the good times and the bad. Join me and let's reflect on these things together.

This "Sunday" edition is our weekly prayer time drawing closer to God through prayer. Let these reflections and prayer prompts guide you as you seek to draw close to your heavenly Father. We come to know and love God more as we spend more time with him. I encourage you to listen to today's episode and do just that... draw closer to God and get to know him better and love him more. Have a great day!

In today's episode we continue our series on what it means to have "the mind of Christ." Just imagine the possibilities of what your life can become when you begin to think like Jesus about every sphere of life. How might your life change? How might you live in a way that glorifies God and blesses others if you saw life the way Jesus does? Those are some of the issues we wrestle with in this week's episode.

God is not stingy with his grace and love. He has it in abundance and has lavished it upon us in and through his Son, Jesus Christ. What is a proper and natural response to such an outpouring of God's favor and power? Gratitude. Holiness. A life given for the glory of God. Join me today as we reflect on these things together from Ephesians 1:3-14.

Today's Walk in the Word begins a new series in the Book of Ephesians in the New Testament. It's a great book that will help us know Christ better and become more like him. As Christians we want to to walk closely with Christ and Ephesians is just the book to help us do that. Today's episode focuses on the Apostle Paul and what he means when he calls us "saints." What does it mean to be a saint? We'll briefly look at that in today's episode. Thanks for stopping by.