FRESH Official Podcast

Have you ever noticed how love always seems to cost you something? The more deeply you love someone, the higher is the price demanded of you. To love truly is to surrender – your comfort, your pride, your plans. And that's confronting.

So, imagine being offered your dream opportunity – but the timing is downright awful. Perhaps it means moving tomorrow, or leaving your family, or missing a friend's funeral, or walking away from everything familiar. You'd wrestle with that, wouldn't you? We all would. And that's exactly the tension that Jesus pressed into here.

Luke 9:59-62 Jesus said to another man, "Follow me!" But the man said, "Lord, let me go and bury my father first." But Jesus said to him, "Let the people who are dead bury their own dead. You must go and tell about God's kingdom." Another man said, "I will follow you, Lord, but first let me go and say goodbye to my family." Jesus said, "Anyone who begins to plough a field but looks back is not prepared for God's kingdom."

It sounds brutal, absolutely – but Jesus wasn't dismissing love or family. He was exposing divided hearts. His love is so fierce, so complete, that it can't settle for second place.

To follow Jesus means trusting that His call – however inconvenient, however painful, even – flows from His perfect love. Because when we put Him first in our hearts, in our lives, every other love finds its rightful place.

Sometimes obedience hurts. But the only way to truly live is to let His love lead – no turning back.

That's God's Word. Fresh … for you … today.

Back in 1610 when Galileo posited that, in reality, the Earth revolves around the Sun and not the other way round, the world branded him a heretic. His truth offended the comfortable order of things. But reality doesn't bend to opinion. It just waits for eyes willing to see.

Some truths taste like medicine – they're bitter, unpleasant; they sting on the way down and yet still manage to heal what's sick on the inside. And that's the thing with Jesus: He doesn't soften truth to keep us happy. He tells it straight, even when it shocks us.

One day, He was teaching a huge crowd. Everything was going fine – until He said something utterly outrageous: "Those who eat my body and drink my blood live in me, and I live in them." 

To us, perhaps that sounds symbolic, but to them it sounded grotesque. They couldn't handle it. 

John 6:66-69 After Jesus said these things, many of his followers left and stopped following him. Jesus asked the twelve apostles, "Do you want to leave too?" Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, where would we go? You have the words that give eternal life. We believe in you. We know that you are the Holy One from God."

Peter didn't stay because everything made sense. He stayed because he'd discovered there was nowhere else to find real life.

What is it that Jesus has said or done that offends you, that makes you squirm, that has you turning and running for the hills? When He says something that cuts across your comfort, your opinions, your pride – do you turn away, or lean in?

Because the most difficult words of Jesus are often the very ones that set us free.

That's God's Word. Fresh … for you … today.

Have you ever looked back on a decision you were absolutely certain was right at the time, yet in light of how it turned out, thought, "How did I not see it?" That's the thing about deception – it rarely feels like darkness in the moment. It feels like light.

In 1986, NASA launched the space shuttle Challenger despite warnings from several engineers that freezing temperatures could cause the O-rings to fail. But under pressure to stay on schedule, managers convinced themselves the risk was acceptable. Seventy-three seconds after liftoff, the shuttle exploded. It wasn't ignorance – it was misplaced confidence. 

Jesus warned about the same danger in the human heart:

Luke 11:35 So be careful! Don't let the light in you become darkness.

He'd just explained that our eyes – the way we perceive truth – are like lamps. When our perspective is pure, light floods in. But when pride or self-justification clouds our view, even what feels right becomes tainted.

Man, I get that. You, too, no doubt. How many times have we both launched into something with less than pure motives driving our decisions, clouding our judgement and snatching away the thing that we thought was already within our grasp? And how much did it hurt each time we let it happen? You'd think we'd have learned by now, wouldn't you?

Be careful! Don't let the light in you become darkness.

So today, ask God to test your inner "light." Are your motives humble or self-serving? Is your confidence anchored in truth or ego? Because real light doesn't blind – it reveals. And only Christ's light can show you who you truly are.

That's God's Word. Fresh … for you … today.

Have you ever reached a point where you thought, "If God really loved me, He wouldn't let this happen"? When prayers seem unanswered and the silence feels deafening, it's easy to start wondering whether He's still who you thought He was.

That's how John the Baptist felt. He'd prepared the way for Jesus, announced Him as the Messiah – and now he was sitting in prison, waiting to die. Nothing about this looked like victory.

So John sent his friends to ask Jesus, "Are you really the one we've been waiting for?" Jesus didn't condemn him for it. He simply pointed to the evidence – the blind seeing, the lame walking, the poor hearing good news – and then said:

Matthew 11:6 Great blessings belong to those who don't have a problem accepting me.

In other words: Blessed are those who don't turn away when I don't fit their expectations. John's story is a salutary reminder that God's goodness isn't proven by how well our life's going. It's proven by who He is – even when we don't understand what He's doing.

That's not an easy lesson to learn. It took me decades. All that time, I was offended by the challenging things Jesus had to say, and by those Christians whose lives looked a whole lot like they'd listened to Him.

Looking back, I just wish I'd dropped my attitude, listened to Him, and walked into His freedom sooner. So if you're perhaps standing in your own kind of prison – waiting, hurting, doubting – hold on.

Don't walk away just because He doesn't meet your expectations. Stay close because His plan is always bigger … and His blessing always worth it.

That's God's Word. Fresh … for you … today.

We're surrounded by incessant noise. Your phone pings, the TV hums away in the background, notifications blink for your attention. One sound after another competing to be heard. Yet, strangely, the more we listen to everything … the less we truly hear anything.

In 2007, a casually dressed musician set up in a busy Washington subway station and played a Bach concerto on his priceless Stradivarius violin. Thousands rushed past – late for work, lost in their phones – not realising that the performer was one of the world's greatest violinists, Joshua Bell. Only a handful stopped to listen.

The beauty was there … they just didn't notice. That's exactly what Jesus was getting at when He said this:

Mark 4:24 Think carefully about what you are hearing. God will know how much to give you by how much you understand now. But he will give you more than you deserve.

Jesus had just told the parable of the sower – how the same seed produces nothing in one heart and abundance in another, depending on how it's received. The difference wasn't the message … it was the hearing.

In a world of distractions, God still speaks – through His Word, His Spirit, and even the quiet nudges of conscience. And the easiest thing for us to do is to ignore Him, or at least downplay the life-saving, life-giving importance of what He's saying.

So, before you rush to the next thing, pause. Lean in. Listen carefully.

Because the measure of attention you give to God is the measure of life He'll pour back into you … more than you could ever deserve.

That's God's Word. Fresh … for you … today.