Forgivin' Livin' Daily Podcast
Our podcasts are 5-8 minutes in length. We create these messages using one or two brief verses from the Bible that come from a devotional book. Our purpose is to help you hear the grace of Jesus in these verses so that your life may find its grounding in Christ alone. It is this grounding in grace that makes forgivin’ livin’ your way of freedom.
05/14/2025
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00(Riocast) Testimony Of Jens Trusting God’s Angels To Direct Him (Psalm 139:9 10; Acts 27:23 24)
Christ the Redeemer Statue stands over Rio De Janeiro. It was here that Jens proposed to his wife Gabriela. His testimony in today’s podcast helps us understand how our strong God asks us to take risks in His name and for His name’s sake. But God does send us angels, messengers, who bring the encouraging word we need to fulfill our calling. You are both a giver and receiver. You are an angel to someone. And God will send angels to you. Trust our Lord in both situations knowing your calling from your Lord.
05/13/2025
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00(Irishcast) Rejoicing In The Treasure Of God’s Word (Psalm 119v162 Matt 13v44
What makes anything a treasure for us? A treasure has to change our lives in some powerful way. A treasure makes us do something different once we know how precious it is for us. How does God’s Word become that treasure for us that makes us do whatever it takes to keep it and live with it all our life long? For me, the Holy Spirit had to open my eyes and my heart to receive the powerful message of the Bible. Before the Spirit did His work, the Bible was just words but after the Spirit came, those words were like a love letter from my wife which I read over and over looking for meaning hidden beneath the lines. Then a second treasure came to me. God gave us the “Daily Texts.” Using the T.R.I.P. method of praying the daily verses freed me from my codependency which was wrecking my life. In both experiences, I know what the Psalmist means by rejoicing more in the word than in great “spoil” or earthly treasure. It is our prayer that as you listen to these podcasts and pray the “Daily Texts” you may also see this experience as your priceless treasure.
05/12/2025
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00Jesus Seeks Sinners (Jeremiah 29:13 14; Matt 9:20 22)
Jesus seeks sinners. The German sign is translated, “all sinners welcome.” That’s what we are sinners saved by grace through faith in the one who came for us. He came to planet that was at war with God. He gave His life for the people who killed Him. He opened the eyes, the ears, the hearts of those He came to save. He was accused of being a friend of sinners and He was. He still is a friend of sinners. He still is seeking the saving the lost. If you have any doubts of knowing if you are His, just know that this doubt is because God’s enemy the devil knows you are important enough to confuse. The devil only has to work on those who belong to the Lord and know that they are God’s child. We have this promise in baptism. We belong. We believe this promise by the power of the Holy Spirit. So now, we can seek His face because God has opened us to want what God wants to give to us.
05/11/2025
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00(Sundaycast) From Thieves To Servants (Exodus 20:15; Eph 4:28)
Our temptation to steal changes when the Holy Spirit gives us new desires. Instead of seeking our ends, we begin to seek the needs of those whom our Lord gives us to love and to bless. In Baptism, the old you was drowned and the new you now walks with Jesus in newness of life (Romans 6:3-4). As we meditate on these texts daily and share their meaning with others, God changes us. Our prayer life changes. As the image above states it, the fruit of living with forgiveness each day is that our eyes stop looking at ourselves and we look for ways to live as people giving of ourselves to the glory of God. Remember the promise of Jesus, whoever is forgiven much will also love much (Luke 7:47). So keep on forgiving and God will create in you a loving giver.
05/10/2025
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00(Missioncast) Father, Why Have You Forsaken Me (Jeremiah 23:23; Mark 15:34)
Jeff and Mim discuss with Denny and Alice the meaning of Jesus’ words on the cross “Why have you forsaken me?” These words are a direct quote of Psalm 22, the words of a righteous man who suffers and expresses his anguish but also his hope for vindication and deliverance in God. We ponder how it is possible for the divine word of God, become flesh, to be made sin for us. We also think of the story of the Prodigal Son (or Loving Father) — it was the Father looking for his Son. In this crucifixion story, it is the Son looking for the Father. The events of the cross are significant and deeply profound. We do well to ponder them for our lifetimes. One thing is certain, because of Jesus’ atoning sacrifice on the cross and resurrection, there is now nothing that can separate us from the love of God — not even our sin. He is risen! He is risen, indeed!
05/09/2025
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00God’s Justice Is In His Grace Toward Us (Ezekiel 33:17; Romans 9:14) 2
Our tour of the footsteps of gospel freedom is coming to an end, but its truth lasts a lifetime. God’s justice exposes us for who we are and frees us from all illusions about ourselves. The result is that we are free for love in a world where everyone else is filled with fear. We invite you to consider inviting Martin and Katie to come to your church community sometime to discover God’s “way” that leads to God’s justice. It is a narrow path. But it is life in Christ. And you will be on the road to freedom from yourself by living for Christ alone.
05/08/2025
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00(Theta) Fulfilled (Deuteronomy 4:13 & Matthew 5:17)
God wrote on the stone tablets but we also know that God has written on your hearts. We read in 2 Corinthians 3:3, “And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.” But what about when Jesus writes on the sand? This happened at the time a woman caught in adultery was threatened with being stoned. So is there a connection between sand and the stone tablets and the human condition? One idea! When Jesus writes in the sand He is connecting with the dust in Genesis 2 that describes our created purpose. Jesus knows He has to bear the accusation that the stone tablets make against this woman. The two stone tablets will crush Him. His crumbled self is now like the dust of our first creation. But now He is the new creation in us who recreates us into the people we were meant to be in the beginning when God created us from dust. We now are free in Christ Alone to go and to sin no more since our Lord is with us and His Spirt is making us into living letters of hope for all those who are being accused and crushed by the law. May Jesus encourage your life as His letter of hope in the world.
05/07/2025
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00(Friendscast) God’s Mighty Faithfulness (Job 38:4,11; Matt 8:26 27)
Even the Nazis could not stop the annual creation of the “Daily Texts.” During their reign of terror which ended 80 years ago this week, they tried to crush any connection between the Old Testament and the New Testament. Jesus was an Aryan after all, and not a Jew, according to their propaganda. Built every year during the war and even under communism after the war, faithful believers picked the verses for each day of the year, to create the “Daily Texts.” The 1300 verses from the Old Testament were placed in this bowl pictured above in Herrnhut. For a period of several weeks these people prayed to God to give them the verse that He wanted for that particular day. Then a New Testament verse was selected by one of their pastors to complement the Old Testament reading. These texts were eventually sent to the 60 plus countries some of whose books are in the Herrnhut building where this picture was taken. Great is God’s faithfulness who continues to bring hope through His texts to over one million people around the world. “God’s Word is our great heritage and shall be ours forever…to spread its light from age to age shall be our chief endeavor.” Let us keep praying daily for the fruitful expansion of God’s presence through His Word throughout the world.
05/06/2025
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00(Irishcast) Hear, Acknowledge And Believe (Isa 33v13 John 11v40)
Belong! Believe! Behave! Our God has an important way for us to be grounded in his faithfulness, and in his might. The first is that God wants us to know that we belong to Him. He is our Father and we are his children. Belonging then leads to believing. This is what Jesus tells Martha. Believing grows out of a relationship of belonging. When we know we are supported by God, our Father then believing in God, His Son becomes possible. And the change that happens as a result is in our life, our actions, our behavior. As a good tree, bears good fruit so the life that has been made good by belonging to the Father and believing in the Son creates the fruit of the Spirit that is our behavior. This is how God takes us out of darkness into his marvelous light. We belong and then we believe and then we behave differently.
05/05/2025
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00God’s Steadfast Love Sets Captives Free (Lamentations 3:31 32; Luke 1:63 64)
Stop and go lights. Traffic lights. They all carry the same colors. Red means stop. Green means go. In Germany they have these two figures to remind those of us who are walking that red means restrain yourself and don’t move. Green means you can get up and go. But no matter what images we find in different places on earth, we all know the red light means stop and the green one means go. So how is it with our God when we feel we are living with lots of red lights. Has God’s compassion run dry for you when the red light seems to be on all the time? What will it take for the green light of God’s grace to set you free? Today’s podcast helps us consider what we have to do to live with God’s promises in those times when we are waiting for God to turn the light green. Be sure you share how God has helped you when you have been waiting a long time for that green light.