Here is a truth that is so hard to comprehend and internalize: we are free from the Law, free from the spiritual consequences of sin and free from eternal death. Oh, in our humanness there is a tendency to want to go back to what we have known,

#35 God Did WHAT?, Part 2

May 31st, 2021 21m 27s

During my time in my original church I twisted verses and their meanings into verbal and contextual pretzels to make them say what the teaching of the church was. My desire to be intellectually honest chipped away at much of the teachings. Fina

#34 God Did WHAT?, Part 1

May 24th, 2021 20m 52s

So, when our acquaintance from our former denomination discovered we were no longer part of it, her reaction was very understandable. Paula and I were heavily invested in the church growing up and people could reasonably expect we would never l

#33 Grace Intersects With Nature

Feb 15th, 2021 19m 3s

Getting together around the campfire in the evening was usually a time of singing and listening to someone speak about life and God. Some of these times were good contemplative opportunities to think about who I was and why I was here--the big

#32 What Does the NT Say About the OT?

Jan 28th, 2021 20m 58s

Sometimes he would reference the OT law to explain what the spirit of the law was. Like in the Sermon on the Mount. That was even harder to hear--it was tough enough to try to keep all of the law perfectly in practice and then Jesus would take

#31 The Greatest Announcement of All Time

Jan 11th, 2021 21m 18s

Wow. Just wow. What a moment! This is heart-pounding kind of stuff. They had been taught that a Messiah would come. They knew this scripture was a prophecy of that promise. Here he was, right in front of them, claiming it for himself. That take

#30 Out With the Old; In With the New

Jan 5th, 2021 20m 5s

The way the dots of scripture and logic were connected said a lot about the person doing the connecting. Some were like a true journalist who tried to let the evidence take them wherever it would and that conclusion was the truth. Others were m

#29 What's In That Song?

Dec 22nd, 2020 17m 59s

Growing up in our church we sang a lot of guilt-inducing songs. I especially remember those about work and working. One song was called To the Work. Another was Work For the Night Is Coming. I don’t know the author’s intent in those songs, but

#28 Grace For Strugglers

Dec 14th, 2020 16m 54s

But what about the inside--the deepest core of us where our being is most intensely personal? Where we search for significance and meaning to our existence? How do we deal with the negative experiences there? Especially when there is no one els

#27 With Lisa Samson and Paula

Nov 9th, 2020 31m 1s

So finally I just had enough and I realized you have to go one way or the other because you're talking about this in your mind and focusing and ruminating on this over and over and over and over. There's nothing new going on here.

#26 Grace Intersects With Doubt

Nov 6th, 2020 13m 56s

I was beginning to imagine his insulting response. The class was utterly silent and it seemed like the full weight of his scornful reply would be felt that much more. Finally, he spoke. Just one word: “absolutely”.

#25 Heart to Heart

Oct 19th, 2020 19m 41s

I knew, if there was any chance at all for us to get back together, it was now or never. As we slowly rode toward the meeting place, I gently placed my right hand on her left knee and said to her, Paula, I love you. Nothing like putting her on

#24 Denial of Reality; Reality of Denial, Part 4

Oct 12th, 2020 16m 53s

Paula: Just because we're Christians, doesn't mean we don't feel the full impact of traumatic experiences. And what I was walking out on a daily basis was wondering if I would have you the next day or the next week. I remember trying so hard an

#23 Denial of Reality; Reality of Denial, Part 3

Oct 5th, 2020 20m 36s

Paula: I think the podcast that begun this series of conversations that we've been having, you were talking about the heart attack in 2017. And you said that I received a phone call and I was left hanging and that I would get to tell my story o

#22 Denial of Reality; Reality of Denial--Part 2

Sep 28th, 2020 19m 14s

Oh, it's so crazy. It's not like God was sitting there smacking his head going, really? What are you thinking? I think that's how we look at ourselves. We put that pressure on ourselves. But God's not doing that. He's just kind of like, well, I

#21 Denial of Reality; Reality of Denial--Part 1

Sep 22nd, 2020 22m 36s

History is a great teacher--if we are willing to be students. In the last episode of Grace Intersect, my wife, Paula, was left hanging on the other end of a very brief phone call--a call she always knew could come, yet trying to live as if it w

#20 When Death Called

Sep 14th, 2020 16m 54s

I had to make a decision. Did I try to stay alive, or let the darkness consume me? I thought if I could somehow find the strength to open my eyes, I would live. If I chose to not open my eyes, my body and life would be covered with the blacknes

#19 With Craig Nelson

Sep 7th, 2020 25m 39s

. . . after I got in trouble, though, it was a, it was the realization that . . . more that I was OK, not that it was OK that I did that, but I was OK. That God loved me. He met me where I was in that jail cell. He . . . the grace was again ov

#18 You Must Have One Without the Other

Aug 31st, 2020 17m 45s

This was an attempt to mix ingredients of the law into the provision of grace. To do this indicates a very poor understanding of God's grace. For some reason, it seems like God’s grace is so very hard to wrap our heads around. We, as humans, ar

#17 Distortion, Manipulation and Inspiration

Aug 24th, 2020 16m 4s

In the early to mid-seventies, when I was in my mid-twenties, I had occasion to attend a screening of a movie called Marjoe at California State University, Sacramento. It was a documentary of a child evangelist who, in his twenties decided to e

#16 Paula and God

Aug 20th, 2020 26m 40s

Paula, you have mentioned many times in our relationship over the last 30 plus years how you have struggled at times with your image of God. And I think the experience that you have is not going to be too unusual. I think a lot of us have simil

#15 Unlimited Grace

Aug 17th, 2020 16m 19s

Do you sometimes wish you had a “Get Out of Hell” card that God would honor? Does God’s grace qualify?The church I grew up in believed you could “fall away” from the grace of God. The idea of eternal security--where God never disowns any of His

#14 God's Love vs. Our Behavior

Aug 13th, 2020 17m 22s

What is actually happening here is that it is really hard to accept that God would not run out of grace. It just goes against everything that makes sense to us, so we have to find justification for it. In fact, we might be able to teach God a f

#13 What’s Love Got to Do With It?

Aug 10th, 2020 15m 10s

We all have this soul-deep need for love and to love. We crave it. There is something about loving and being loved that gives purpose and meaning to living. But, how does that work? What does that look like? What kind of love are we thinking ab

#12 I'm The Luckiest Man On Earth

Aug 6th, 2020 20m 7s

The drive for intimate, loving relationship comes from deep within our souls. We want to know and be known in a safe relationship where the purist love possible blends each person into fulfilling intimacy with the other.