Stagione 2
Promises Of Hope EP85
The Good Life Of Hope EP84
Finding Validation EP83
God's Good Purpose EP82
The Crowned King EP81
Awakening To Reality EP80
Relationally New EP79
Learning The Kingdom Way EP78
Kingdom Life Now! EP77
In this episode Larry and James continue the conversation about hope. From the transcript... I hope you're having a wonderful day. Enjoying all that Papa has for you today. I wanted to take this time to ask you to join me in celebrating. Man, I like to celebrate. I just celebrated. Ha! Woo! I just celebrated my birthday here. This is the first part of this month. I almost told you how old I am. I'm a young lad. Strong, 57 years old. The reason I'm here talking to you right now is I've written a book. It started with video, taking transcripts, working with that. God has done this thing. I've often talked about writing a book. I haven't written that book that I often talk about writing, but one day I will. But the Lord orchestrated the events of getting this book to print. The title of it is Before Time, Our Origin in Christ. My good friend Andrew Maui helped me put this together and got me started down that road. And the Lord just, boom, put it out there. even try it wasn't even anything i was it was on my radar it's just the lord decided he wanted to do it so he did you can get it at amazon .com just search the title and my name james alderman or you can come to our website findingourway .co
In this episode James and Larry meander around the concept of hope. From the transcript... I just wanted to jump in here and say thanks for tuning in. Hope you're being blessed by our conversations. Ask you to reach out to us. I'd like to hear from you. Finding our way. You can find where the show is, all of our podcasts, YouTube, everything's there. We've got a little blog. There's a place that says contact us. Hit that and you can send us an email. We'd love to hear from you. I think I told you a week or so ago about a shift. Something shifted in me, in my spirit. When I realized afresh, there are people in this world that get so depressed, lose all hope, they don't want to live anymore. Yeah. And when I got the news about an individual that had taken their life, I didn't know him very well. I knew him, hadn't seen him in years. But just getting the news, something in me shifted that made me want to be more intentional. more aggressive as it were about getting our message
In this episode Larry and James share various experiences and thoughts regarding validation. From the transcript... I'm just saying, there's the wide open spaces—fields of grace. Ooh, living in my Father's face. I'm telling you, son, mess around here and I'll get on pace with the Holy Ghost and say something. Tapped into your poetic self. Yeah, yeah. We'll be dancing. Anyway, we can walk down through that psalm some more. Maybe that was the road we went down at that time. Might have been. Went to that lake or whatever. Might have been. Well, the thing about where the Father said, This is my beloved Son—the validation of that. Theologically, we hang our hat on that about, This is proof. Jesus is God. He is the Messiah. This is the launching of His public ministry, and all that good stuff. And how important it is in a relationship to express what you think, feel, and believe to those who are in relationship with you. You need that. But the idea of validation—trust, trying to get with that—is that sometimes we're looking for validation that only our Heavenly Father gives us.
In this episode Larry and James discuss the purpose of God and His goodness displayed. From the transcript... I was thinking about that passage you read earlier when Jesus was baptized. I don't even know what I can say about it, other than the Father, verbally to John the Baptist and those who could hear, said, This is my beloved Son, in whom—or in Him—I am well pleased. That's Jesus’ beginning, and we always say “His ministry.” I don't even know how I look at that anymore, but He lived His whole life—it was a ministry, from birth to ascension. But anyway, neither here nor there. Just thinking about it, because for me personally, what Jesus must have heard when He came up out of the water and heard the Father—This is my much-loved Son. I'm very fond of Him. Yeah. Because that's the longing of my heart: to hear that. Not that I don’t, but every time I hear it, I want to hear it again. It's kind of like, think about in your family or in your marriage. You love one another. You tell your wife, “I love you.” She tells you, “I love you.” But you like to hear it again. Yeah, you need to say it again. Even though it's a given—there's not a problem, there's no question of if it's true. It's not that.
In this episode Larry and James talk about King Jesus. From the transcript... I think we're good. So you don't want that book? What book? That book. No. I'm good. We are ready to go. Do we have… What were we going to talk about? Oh, I don't know. Oh, I was just going to say, I did… coming down, I… listened to that guy and talked to Ronnie. I ain't got nothing. I mean, we're going to start this day with zero from Larry. I normally, you know, give some thought. Ain't no thought today. You got it. Today is a take-no-thought. Take no thought for your life. It's a good looking truck right there. Oh, yeah. You're talking about that red TNC? That red one's pretty sharp. That red one's pretty good. Silver Island. Y'all want to get up here out of the way? I'm trying to think. Don't let me forget. You've got to remember this now. I need to find somewhere to get my fishing license, so I'm over here. I told my father-in-law I'd go fishing with him Monday. He wants to leave his house by 6 Monday morning. I'm going to come over Sunday. You need to get on before then, yeah. Spend the night Sunday. This is your neck of the woods, so I'm not quite sure. Probably a convenience store.
In this episode Larry and James discuss ultimate reality and the life that is ours now. From the transcript... Yeah, think about it. I'm going to read these two verses. Remember I told you I was reading Ephesians when I wrote this. I'm going to read these two verses and you tell me what it says that we have to do so that we can somehow or another get in on that. Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm has already been lavished upon us as a love gift from our wonderful Heavenly Father, the Father of our Lord Jesus, all because He sees us wrapped into Christ. This is why we celebrate Him with all our hearts. And in love, He chose us before He laid the foundation of the universe. Because of His great love, He ordained us so that we would be seen as holy in His eyes with an unstained innocence. That was all done before He did anything. Right. That's His eternal intention, plan, desire that's unfolding that we're awakening to—we're beginning to see—but it's all in love. Yeah, I find later, according to His great pleasure, according to the riches of His grace. What is love and grace and pleasure, right? That's a vastly different view of the God I grew up on. Well, well, one where we grew up, you just read from the Passion. We can't read from that book.
In this episode Larry and James talk about our now new relationship to God. From the transcript...We’ve got a freedom in Christ. We don’t know what to do with our freedom. We’ll get a reset. We don’t know what to do with the reset. Everything I ever thought about how it was has been wrong. I’m having to relearn it all, and some of that’s been a slow wrangle. How do you operate without a hierarchy when all you’ve known is a hierarchy? How do you operate as equals, in mutual submission, when it’s never been modeled? You read about it in Jesus. You believe it’s what exists in the relationship with the Trinity. That’s where life was created. Life was born out of that relationship. And that’s the circle dance we’ve been brought into. But I can barely hear the music, and I still haven’t gotten in step with it just yet very well. Eugene Peterson in The Message talks about the rhythms of grace—the unforced rhythms of grace. There you go. Spontaneous living. That’s what Norman Grubb called it. That’s what he called it abundant life, I guess Jesus called it life in the Spirit, as Paul called it: be filled with the Spirit. I think it’s just living life. Well, it’s not hard. It’s just unpracticed, unmodeled, unseen, not believed. It’s a question because everywhere you go, it’s law-based.
In this episode Larry and James discuss life in the kingdom of God. From the transcript...Unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away, their minds were hardened. For until this day, the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ, the law. I see what you’re saying now. But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. Nevertheless, when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. They turned to the Spirit. Yeah. Christ, the Spirit within, is Lord. Yeah, yeah. It’s like you’re looking in the wrong direction.
In this episode Larry and James talk about living life in the kingdom of God, NOW! From the transcript... I am fascinated by the number of things that come up in our mind when we do stuff like that. Contrary to what we're attempting to do, it seems to be all the reasons why you can't. Oh, yeah. Which is adversarial thoughts. Mm-hmm. You can use that phrase. Yep. Yep. When the truth is, everything that hinders us from living in health, wholeness, and happiness—did I get everything ?—health, wholeness, and happiness. Everything that hinders us from living there has been removed. Yes. Through the cross, through the incarnation, crucifixion, death, burial, resurrection, and new life has come and is ours. Yeah. It's a new quality of life, a new way of being human. Healthiness, wholeness, and happiness. Humanity, yeah. That's good. That's what we were created for. Yes. Healthiness, wholeness, and happiness. They all come under the abundant life that Jesus came to give. In some sense, those were the idea behind Shalom. Oh, come on now, preach to them. In the Old Testament, the word shalom for peace had that idea of wholeness.
In this episode Larry and James discuss living life in relationship to our Father. From the transcript... Well, for me, when I even hear what's the metrics of relationship, I just stiffen and bristle. Yeah, it's rules. Yeah. It's a law of language. But I don't know how to have conversations that don't end up there or that doesn't use those terms. I guess that's what Jesus said. A good teacher, he brought out of his treasure things old and new. I got a lot of that old law language in me. I just don't have much new love language left to use that seems to satisfy me anyway. I got some resources right here. I'll do a little plug here for Robin Smit. Her book, It Is Finished. Just read the back cover and I might read a quote and talk about it. She says, What if 2,000 years ago was the catalyst that changed everything? What if Hosea and Isaiah saw something that we haven't fully grasped? Yeah. This book is full of stuff. She says here, and I'm just pulling a quote out of nowhere: This chapter is under chapter 1, actually, Understanding Paul. But here, listen to what she says. I think it might go along with what we've been talking about: The Father has never looked at humanity through the lens of the fall.