Human beings are natural builders, but the problem is many of us build our lives on unstable foundations—worldly success, self-reliance, or fleeting ambitions—that ultimately collapse under pressure. The solution is to build on Jesus, the master builder, who is the sure foundation and cornerstone of God's spiritual house. By trusting in him, aligning with his teachings, and allowing him to shape our lives, we gain stability and purpose. As a result, our lives remain steadfast even in uncertainty. What’s more, we’re called to join God in His work—building up others and participating in His mission to reunite heaven and earth. In the end, God is not just building something for us—He is building us into something lasting and eternal! 
 

Many people struggle to feel truly welcomed, accepted, and secure—especially in a world that often feels isolating and adversarial. But Scripture reveals a God who is not distant or indifferent; He is a gracious host, inviting us into His presence with the radical hospitality of a Bedouin patriarch. In Psalm 23, Isaiah 42, and the life of Jesus, we see a God who prepares a table, offers provision, and extends protection—even in the presence of our enemies. This episode explores how God’s hospitality redefines belonging and how Jesus models a love that welcomes without compromise. Discover how embracing this divine invitation can transform the way you see God, yourself, and the people around you. 

During the height of the Roman Empire, the world experienced an unprecedented era of stability that allowed people to travel freely. Most did so by land and sea, and few logged more miles than the apostle Paul. During his missionary journeys, the Apostle Paul traveled thousands of miles by land and sea! Along the way, he experienced fear repeatedly: beatings, robberies, imprisonments, shipwrecks. But he never allowed fear to become a barrier to his faith. This episode will inspire you to face your fears with greater courage and to live with dangerous faithfulness.

Too often, we live with divided hearts. On the one hand, our hearts are devoted to God. We want God’s best for our lives. We want God’s kingdom to come. On the other hand, we continue to allow places in our lives where evil and sin persist. This episode explores the life of King Asa and our deeply human tendency to be devoted to God without tearing down the high places in our lives. By the end of this episode, you’ll know how to identify the high places in your life and begin the process of demolishing them for good.

The idea that we don’t have enough permeates our lives. We don’t have enough money. We don’t have enough sleep. We don’t have enough time. We’re constantly looking for ways to acquire more. But “more” rarely delivers the contentment we’re looking for. And the wilderness is the place where God strips away the faulty distractions and excess that increasingly define our lives. In the wilderness, God recalibrates our understanding of what’s essential and what’s enough so we experience the contentment we were made for.

There are moments in life when the path ahead is unclear or downright scary, moments when everything in us wants out of the situation or circumstance we’re in. It’s only natural to ask God to rescue us or change things. That’s part of what prayer is about. But there’s another dimension of prayer we find in the Scriptures. It’s one we often fail to pray, making our prayers incomplete. It’s the prayer David prayed. It’s the prayer Habakkuk prayed. And it’s an astounding prayer of strength and trust that God will empower us no matter where our path leads. This teaching explores how to pray more completely in the wilderness seasons of life.

You’re not where you were, and you’re not where you’re going to be. You’re in between. Welcome to the wilderness. It’s in these ambiguous spaces where we either become who God is inviting us to be or we shrink into the smaller, more manageable stories we write for ourselves. Because it’s easier to be a slave in Egypt than to trust God in the desert. But no one aspires to be the person who shrinks. We want to learn to trust well and become all God intended for us to be. This teaching will give you practical ways to grow your trust in God in hard times.

The practice of grounding yourself in gratitude is essential to a life well-lived. But in the wilderness experiences of life, gratitude isn’t enough. In those times, we need to identify, name, and express our losses. The Psalms are a case in point. Filled with both songs and prayers of praise, they’re also packed full of songs of lament. Because being grounded in gratitude and lamenting the loss are deeply human and deeply biblical. This teaching will give you a new perspective on how to hold both the gratitude and the loss.

In Hebrew, the root word for midbar (desert) is the Hebrew word davar, which means to speak. While God is always speaking, we usually hear God best in the desert experiences of our lives. Why? Because in seasons of hardship and challenge, busyness and distraction are stripped away, and we become more present and open to God’s voice. When that happens, God often speaks exactly what we need to hear. What if the COVID-19 pandemic is a desert experience in which God is inviting us to pay attention and listen for His voice? If so, we might just receive a davar in the midbar that could change everything.

When things go wrong in life, one of the first things we feel is that we’re alone. And the social distancing and stay-at-home orders of the COVID-19 pandemic only amplify our sense of isolation. In the Hebrew Scriptures, the wilderness is the primary metaphor for challenging seasons of life. But what if the challenges and limitations of the wilderness actually call forth the richness of our creativity? This episode explores how creativity can help us overcome isolation so we can experience grapes in the desert.

The number 40 is hugely significant in the Scriptures. Noah. Moses. Israel. Elijah. Jonah. Jesus. It shows up again and again, and for good reason. The number 40 represents testing, trial, opposition, challenge, and refinement. But all the challenge and struggle are in service of the wisdom and newness that’s seeking to be born. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, may we not give way to fear, anxiety, and self-preservation, but instead, embrace the hope of what life in the 40 will turn into.

Honor and shame played a significant role in the cultural context of Jesus’s life and ministry. Like a stain, shame diminished a person’s worth in the eyes of the community, and shame continues to have this crippling effect on countless people. From start to finish, this parable is saturated with shame, and Jesus seems to have designed it this way on purpose. Why? Because Jesus is telling us something about Himself and what happens to shame on the cross.

Two significant (but often overlooked) moments in the parable reveal there’s more than one way to be lost. It’s just as possible to be lost in the Father’s house as it is to be lost in the far country. Countless people end up lost not as prodigals, but by believing they’re earning God’s love and acceptance with their obedience. This is not how the Father runs the house. And this episode explores how joy is the litmus test that keeps us from getting lost on the inside.

In the Roman world, the macellum wasn’t just a marketplace—it was a crossroads of daily life, culture, and faith. Part grocery store, part food court, part temple, it was a place where the lines between everyday meals and pagan sacrifices often blurred. For Gentile converts from pagan backgrounds, the sight of fellow Christians eating meat once offered to idols stirred deep discomfort. And it was issue Paul had to address. This episode offers practical guidance on how to balance your freedom in Christ with a loving sensitivity toward others, and how to navigate the gray areas of faith with wisdom and grace.

Sometimes people walk away from God, but few things are as painful as seeing your children walk away. Jesus’s words strike a deep chord with parents who’ve felt helpless as their children walk their own path. Parenting is a sensitive issue and addresses the most tender place within us: our deep love for our children. In this episode, we examine the Father’s posture of heart towards a son he knows is lost in his own home. Unlike other characters in the parable, the Father doesn’t pursue his son, leaving us wondering, why doesn’t he do more? Jesus offers us a picture of risky love that doesn’t coerce, or force or control, but instead let’s go and waits expectantly with open arms.

It’s easy to forget how much we’ve been forgiven. And when we do so, our relationship with God and others suffers greatly. In this episode of the parable of the lost son, we key in on the younger son and unpack his journey of being lost and then found. And in doing so, we get to marvel at the extravagant grace of God who embraces us despite our faults and failures. But until we allow ourselves to be embraced and changed by this grace, we’ll seek to manipulate and connive in our relationship with God, and we’ll also fail to extend to others the kind of grace God expects from us.

Right before Jesus told the Parable of the Lost Son, he told the Parables of the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin. That’s because these three parables go together. And in order to understand what Jesus was challenging his hearers with in the Parable of the Lost Son, we must first understand what Jesus was communicating with the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin. Hence, this episode. And as we’ll be questioned with, if all people are worth pursuing, and God is passionately pursuing all people, shouldn’t followers of Jesus be doing the same? Let’s find out.

Traditionally known as the “Parable of the Prodigal Son,” this story of Jesus has captured the hearts and minds of people for two thousand years. It’s among his most famous teachings, and it highlights the essence of his mission. And like every story of Jesus (and of the Bible), it has a context that is often lost on readers. Which is why in this episode, we begin laying out that context by looking at the reason Jesus tells the parable in the first place. And as we’ll discuss, too many are content knowing the stories of Jesus. But we’re not just called to know the stories of Jesus; we’re called to live the stories of Jesus.

92% of New Year’s resolutions fail. Clearly, there’s something wrong with the way we execute our goals. But the biggest problem isn’t with the execution; it’s with the goals themselves. Many of us are setting bad goals, and we don’t even know it. They’re having a negative impact on us, and we’re totally unaware. In this final part on the Parable of the Rich Fool, we’re going to challenge the way we think about goals, assess the ones we have, and ensure that we’re setting the right kind of goals. Because if we don’t set the right goals, we’ll pursue the wrong ones, and find ourselves in poverty to the purposes of God.

We are not the sum total of our possessions and accomplishments. Nor are we the sum total of our faults and failures. And yet, we often live as if that’s the case. We believe our worth and our value comes from what we have or what we do. Jesus confronted this toxic perspective in the Parable of the Rich Fool. But even more than that, he obliterated it in his coming at Christmas. And until we’ve understood and embraced the Christmas identity, we’re going to struggle significantly, and miss out on one of the most foundational and freeing truths in life.

One of the biggest mistakes we make is believing that what we have, we actually own. In God’s eyes, we don’t own anything. Everything we have – our accomplishments, our possessions, even our lives – all belong to God. We’re simply called to steward what we have on God’s behalf. The rich man in this parable failed to see this, and many of us do as well. Until we recognize this, we’ll struggle with our possessions and we’ll fail to live as generous as God would like. As we move into this Christmas season of giving, this is a teaching we all need to hear.

Possessions can be tricky. On the one hand, many of them are needed and incredibly useful. But on the other hand, they can possess us in ways that we may or may not realize. In the Parable of the Rich Fool, Jesus warns, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” His point is easy to understand. But then the question becomes, “Do we actually live as if what he said is true?” Let’s find out.

Despite what we may think, many people didn’t believe Jesus’s ministry was all that impressive. In fact, they questioned whether or not God’s kingdom was really advancing through him. In response, Jesus told a parable about a mustard seed. Even though it’s incredibly small, its capacity for growth is massive. Jesus challenged his audience to recognize that even though things may not be unfolding the way we think, that doesn’t mean God isn’t at work. Quite the opposite. And what may appear to be small and seemingly insignificant may be germinating into something substantial.

Did you know that Jesus didn’t manufacture the Parable of the Good Samaritan out of thin air? He was actually drawing upon a story from the Old Testament (his Bible). And it’s one of the most incredible war stories on loving one’s enemies. It’s sitting behind the parable, and this story, coupled with Leviticus 19:18, gives us a window into how we can love all people well, and how we must find the common humanity in others long before we highlight the differences. This is the final episode in this series on the Parable of the Good Samaritan, and so we must ask, “Have we become the neighbor Jesus has asked us to become?” Let’s find out.

Brothels and pubs were fixtures in every city of ancient Roman society. Then, as now, people engaged in illicit sex and alcohol use to numb the pain of life. Brothels were staffed primarily by male and female slaves, some of whom were "exposed at birth" as unwanted children and then claimed by brothels to be raised as sex workers. Pubs were popular because most of the poor had no cooking facilities, so they spent much of their time in pubs, where gambling, fighting, prostitution, and drunkenness were the norm. The Apostle Paul, writing within the Roman world, addressed these issues with timeless warnings. This teaching will challenge you to identify ways you’re numbing out and filling yourself with deceptive temptations instead of emptying yourself and making room for God’s Spirit.

Jesus didn’t tell the Parable of the Good Samaritan so that we would help people in need. That was a byproduct. He told the parable to smash our categories of who’s “in” and who’s “out” to smithereens. The Samaritans were the most hated people on the planet for Jesus’s audience. And yet, to their utter shock and anger, the Samaritan was the hero of the story. Tantamount to saying, “The Good Hamas Member,” Jesus’s audience was confronted with their inability to love their enemy and to imagine that they could be good. If our world is going to change, it requires a radical love that begins with a better imagination.

There’s a marked distinction between sympathy and empathy. Sympathy stands at a distance and says, “I’m sorry you’re going through this.” Empathy stands in the other person’s shoes and says, “I want to understand your situation so that I can respond in a way that’s truly loving and helpful to you.” Too many of us choose the former. The Good Samaritan chose the latter. And that’s precisely what Jesus was after when challenging his followers to respond in love to those in need. Love must be manifested in action. And in this episode, we learn how to do just that.

So often, we allow fear or inconvenience drive our response to someone who is in need. In the Parable of the Good Samaritan, we meet a priest and Levite who fail to help a man who is in great need. But a Samaritan does what they were unable or unwilling to do. The priest and Levite were more focused on the implications for themselves than they were for the implications of this man. In this episode, we unpack the stunning details of this remarkable story, and why we must shift the focus from ourselves to others in order to be the kind of neighbors Jesus is challenging us to become.

When someone wants to encourage others to ask questions, they will often say, “There are no stupid questions.” But those who’ve been asked too many stupid questions will invariably reply, “Sure, there are no stupid questions – just stupid people who ask them.” It’s their way of humorously (or not so humorously) stating that there are clearly good questions and there are bad questions. In Luke 10, Jesus is asked by an expert, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” It’s a bad question, but not for the reasons you may think. The underlying factors betray his question, and he’s seeking a bare minimum approach to obedience to God. The problem is, many of us do the same thing, but unlike the expert, we may have no clue we’re doing it. If we don’t address it, we’re going to miss the way of Jesus and fail to live the life Jesus is calling us to live right now.

Did Jesus tell parables to confuse his audience? A literal reading of the Parable of the Soils seems to indicate that. But what most people don’t realize is that Jesus does something with this parable that he doesn’t do with any of his other parables – he bookends it with the words “to hear.” Whoa! Until this phrase is set within the unfolding narrative of the Bible, it’s impossible to understand what Jesus is doing to help and challenge his audience to understand his words, and why he shockingly quotes Isaiah to prove it. He wants his audience to be like a bumper crop. But in order to do so, they must be willing to not only listen to the word of God, but obediently and courageously walk it out. As disciples of Christ, we must do the same, and this parable instructs on how to do so!

The Parable of the Soils (traditionally: Sower) is only one of three parables that shows up in all three synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). Of the three parables, it shows up the earliest, and in each one, it kicks off a series of parables. Why do we need to know that? Because it’s a parable about parables. To understand what Jesus is doing in his other parables, it’s imperative to understand what he’s doing in this one, which is why we’re starting here. Jesus portrays his listeners as one of four soils, but only one soil is desired. The question is, “Are we that soil?” And if not, what do we need to do? This episode will help you figure that out.

Being intentional with God’s Word is essential to living a deep and meaningful life. In the biblical period, God’s people were called to not only dig into the Scriptures but also to have an ongoing discussion with their friends and family about them. Formany of us, our time with God’s Word often stops with reading it and we miss out on the critical responsibility of discussion. In this episode, we explore why it’s so crucial to be intentional about our relationship with the Bible so that it permeates every facet of our lives.

We’re kicking off a brand-new series on Jesus and His Parables. Nearly one-third of Jesus’s teachings are in the form of parables. Jesus knew how to tell a good story. And he leveraged the power of story because he knew it was the most effective strategy for spreading a message. When we understand the power of story, and how Jesus utilized it, we’ll not only better understand his parables, but we’ll also be convinced that we must tell more stories if we want our most significant messages to spread.

How do you get people to change? It’s a simple, yet profound question. What if I told you that the way we typically think people change isn’t the way they change at all – that we’ve got it all backwards? The good news is that Jesus didn’t. He knew exactly how people change, and employed an approach that maximized this. And when you understand what he did and why he did it, the way you approach change in your life and in the lives of others will definitely change. Enjoy!

Most people have heard the axiom, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” According to the apostle Paul (in Acts 20), it was Jesus who coined this. He knew this truth more than anyone else, because his entire life was devoted to loving and serving people well. As followers of Jesus, we’re called to do the same. But how can we grow in our ability to do so? I recently had a monumental conversation that gave me a new angle on how to serve people well, and I can’t wait to share it with you. As you implement this strategy into your life, I believe you will experience anew the reality that it is more blessed to give than to receive.

Roman bathhouses were a central feature of daily life across the Roman Empire. Ironically, their primary purpose wasn’t hygiene, but for serving as social hubs where people from all walks of life could relax, socialize, conduct business, and engage in various activities like eating, drinking, exercising, playing games, attending lectures, or having sensual interactions. Due to their popularity, the Apostle Paul drew from bathhouse imagery to urge Christians to “rid themselves” of old, sinful habits, much like shedding old clothes. By the end of this teaching, you’ll be challenged to align your habits with the new heart and status Jesus gave you!

According to Proverbs 9:10, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.” Perhaps you’ve heard this before, and maybe, like me, you’ve wondered, “Are we supposed to be scared of God?” Is this what this verse means? Or as some of us have no doubt learned, the “fear” here is really a “reverent fear.” But is that true? In this episode we unpack this passage to understand what “fearing the LORD” entails and how a proper understanding enables us to trust God more in our lives.

Over and over again in the Bible, we hear the command, “Do not fear.” But what is this command really getting at? Is it simply that we’re never to experience fear, and if we do, we’re disobeying God in some way? Or is there more to it? Fear can be a paralyzing reality in our lives. But it can also be a gift. It all depends on how we engage it. That’s why in this episode, we explore the nature of fear, how it negatively impacts us, and how we can leverage courage to move through it to do what we know we need to do but have struggled to do so.

Most of us have heard the proverb, “Train up a child in the way they should go, and when they are old they won’t depart from it.” It’s a great proverb about teaching kids how to walk out God’s path in life. But there’s another level to understanding this proverb that I believe sheds light on one of the most significant principles for not only parenting our kids extremely well, but in how we love and lead our co-workers, teams, and others we’re called to serve.

We often carry our burdens alone. Maybe we don’t want others to know what we’re going through. Maybe we don’t want to burden anyone with our burdens. Whatever the reasons may be, we don’t distribute them very well. And when we do this, the weight of carrying our burdens alone becomes an endeavor that leaves us weary and discouraged, with very little hope that anything will change. We cannot carry them alone. Indeed, we weren’t designed to.

Throughout this series, we’ve looked at all of the various aspects of the Lord’s Prayer. In this final episode of the series, we look at several methods in which we can pray and utilize the Lord’s Prayer on a regular basis to take what we’ve learned and put into a practice. And in doing so, really owning this prayer in our lives so that it governs the way the way we think and live, and ultimately how we follow Jesus in the world today.

The part of the Lord’s Prayer that asks God not to “lead us into temptation but deliver us from evil” has created a lot of confusion. Even Pope Francis has sought to modify this language. Is God in the habit of leading us into testing and temptation? Is there a difference between the two? And how are we to understand the moments when Jesus was tempted? In this episode, we answer these questions, as well as addressing the reality that when we focus on Jesus’s divinity at the expense of his humanity, we fail to understand how brutally difficult his own trials and temptations were. But when we understand this, and what he did to overcome, we learn how to do the same in our own lives.

Jesus told us to pray, “Forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors.” Jesus’s assumption is that we would be forgiving others in the manner in which God has forgiven us. But what happens when we’ve been wronged by someone and we’re struggling to forgive them? What do we do when the pain is so real that we can’t stomach the thought of forgiveness? That’s what we tackle in this episode as we seek to understand the nature of forgiveness. And in doing so, we learn how to forgive others well so that we can not only experience the power and freedom of forgiveness, but faithfully live out this command of Jesus from the Lord’s Prayer.

“Give us today our daily bread.” Sounds pretty straightforward, right? But what does it mean to ask for daily bread? How do we bring our requests before God? And what should we be asking for in the first place? These questions and more are the subject of this episode as we seek to understand what Jesus meant by the phrase, “our daily bread,” and what it means to faithfully live out this aspect of the Lord’s Prayer.

Many people believe that the point of Jesus was to rescue us from our sins so that we can leave earth and go to heaven. But the problem is that Jesus doesn’t spend his time teaching about how we from here (earth) to go there (heaven), but about getting there (heaven) to come here (earth). Hold on tight because without question, the content of this episode is the most paradigm shifting aspect of the Lord’s Prayer. And my hope is that we may finally understand what we’ve been praying all along when we’ve said, “your kingdom come, your will be done, here on earth as it is in heaven!”

Hallowed be your name. What in the world does it mean to “hallow” someone’s name? And what is the significance of God’s name? Furthermore, why does Jesus tell us it needs to be hallowed in the first place? As with every aspect of the Lord’s Prayer, this one is loaded with meaning and rooted in Old Testament stories in order to help us understand the absolute necessity of God’s name being recognized in the world, and how our lives bear witness to the holiness of His great name.

Romans loved the blood and gore of gladiators and beast hunts. These explosive spectacles were designed to recall great moments from Rome’s past and were deliberately sponsored by politicians who also distributed cash-handouts, donations for public banquets, and other gifts to secure the public’s favor. Knowing they were about to die, gladiators nevertheless sought to die well. The Apostle Paul seized on imagery and language from gladiators and beast hunts to illustrate what a life fully yielded to God looked like. This fascinating teaching by Dr. Randall Smith (a dear friend of the WTT community!) will spark your curiosity and challenge you to consider how to yield everything in your life to God, including your death. 

When Jesus told us to pray, “Our Father who is in heaven,” it is literally recorded in Greek as, “in the heavens.” Why would Jesus be talking about God being “in the heavens?” What did this mean to the people first hearing Jesus say this? And what does this mean for us in our relationship with God and in our understanding of “Heaven?” All of this and more are addressed in this teaching as we explore not only the God who rules and reigns overall, but the God who is ever-present to us in the midst of our circumstances and our lives.

The Lord’s Prayer begins with “Our Father.” Whoa! In Jesus’s day, you couldn’t begin a prayer more explosively than that. It’s been said that when Jesus told us to address God as “Our Father” that he was introducing a new way to approach God. Nope! The notion of God as “Father” had been deeply rooted in Israel’s story for fifteen hundred years. What Jesus was doing was calling for revolution, and that revolution would begin as a result of his ministry. The revolution is still underway, and Jesus’s invitation for us is to join it. And it all begins by saying the words, “Our Father.”

The Lord’s Prayer is the most well-known and well-loved prayer in history. But how well do we know the Lord’s Prayer? Sure, most of us can recite it off the top of our heads (and probably in the King James with its “thy’s” and “art’s”), but do we really understand what Jesus was saying and teaching us when he gave this prayer? I know I sure didn’t. But when I began to understand this prayer in context, I was awestruck by how deep and significant it was. And it compelled me to pray more intentionally, live more faithfully, and love Jesus more fully. My hope is that this series will help you do the same.