Lessons From The Tent

Mike Bradley
  • 5.0 (4)
  • Christianity

As the title says, this is a podcast about just one thing. Each lesson is roughly six and a half minutes long with the focus on what is the purpose of life. Please don’t confuse this with a religious podcast because it certainly is not. This is a podcast about life from God’s perspective – what He created it to be. Unfortunately, whenever God is mentioned, people instantly think we are talking about religion. That’s a shame because God hates to be confused with man made religion. God is the author and giver of life. Mankind created religion I suppose to help soothe their frustration/discomfort with their personal struggles. And because religion doesn’t solve those issues, we keep creating more religious expressions under the guise that this one is better than that one. I will not be picking on any religious group during these podcasts. I only hope to introduce you to the whole purpose of life on earth according to the Creator of all things and how He designed us to live. I hope you will give these Lessons From The Tent a try and get to understand the purpose for your life.  If you have any questions feel free to contact me at mike@lessonsfromthetent.com

  1. 4d ago

    Living in the Kingdom - The Real You | Section 05 Episode 56

    SECTION 5   LESSON 56 Living in the kingdom – The real you  Biblical references:  Ephesians 4:17-19 (1)  Romans 6:11, 12 (2)  Good morning and welcome to another Lesson From The Tent. This lesson is about how to live in the kingdom of God as the title suggests. But I have added at the end of the title these three words “the real you.” Though they are descriptive of this lesson, they are also a caveat, meaning I’m giving a warning about the information that is about to be presented.   According to the title of Living in the Kingdom, you wouldn’t think I need to give you any kind of warning about that. So, what type of warning would I possibly need to give you concerning this?   The reason I say this is because The real you part of this lesson will expose who you really are to everyone listening to these podcasts, so you probably ought to know that before we begin. There is something nice about this though. I am also going to expose your brother, your sister, your boss, your best friend, your mom, your dad, your spouse and all nine billion people on the planet. So at least you don’t need to think I’m only singling you out. This passage I am referring to exposes me as much as it exposes you and everyone else.   Here are the words of God I am talking about.  “So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality, for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.” (1)  What a condemnation of our fallen humanity this is. Some of you listening may want to pound my head in for saying this about you but please give me a little mercy. God is the one who inspired these words, and He knows what He is talking about. Besides, I am not ready to be stoned to death right now. After all, I just beat stage four cancer so I would like to live a little longer.   With this passage God does condemn all nine billion people alive on this planet. But what I find so interesting is these words are written to God’s favored ones to teach them not live what this passage says. If someone is not in the kingdom, they have no hope of living differently from what this passage says. A person must have the powerful kingdom reign of God in them to live the surrendered life they were created for.  But even though you are born again and have the kingdom reigning inside you now, you still have your fallen nature inside of you. And if you are not working daily to consider it dead as the apostle Paul says, (2) then your fallen nature will be influencing your life more than the Holy Spirit does as this passage teaches. God’s words here are as true a description of us fallen people as has ever been written.  If you remember in last week’s lesson, we learned God designed a plan at the beginning of time to fix us fallen humans and destroy the works of the devil. This has already taken place through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. This is why God can rescue His favored ones from the domain of darkness and transfer them to the kingdom of His beloved Son.   So where does that leave us today? I’m glad you asked because the next section of lessons is all about what God wants from us now that we are living in His kingdom. And what He wants is both simple and complex. It’s simple because God simply wants His favored ones to actively participate in a relational partnership with Him. But it is complex because there is so much wrong about us that needs to be changed, so we can fully experience this amazing relationship with Him.   This passage we are looking at reveals many things about us but the most significant truth it teaches is we are, darkened in our understanding of God and His ways. This causes us to be excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in us, and the hardness of our heart.   That statement tells us all we need to know about the difficulty we will have learning to know God and living in His kingdom the way He wants us to. These ugly character flaws that God reveals about us, make it impossible to have an intimate relationship with God unless they are continually being dealt with.   Even though this is God’s assessment of us He also knows that with the power of His reign living inside us all this ugliness can be undone. Listen to what God says about this.  “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the dire of the flesh. (2)   Remember, the desire of our flesh is to un-surrender to God which then means if we are not surrendered then we cannot walk by the Spirit while living in His kingdom. Let me say that again. If we are not surrendered to God, then we cannot walk by the Spirit while living in His kingdom.  The two words will not are an exceptional promise of God. He guarantees that if we walk by the Spirit we will not carry out any of the evil, sinful, wrong desires that our flesh has. All we have to do is just walk by the Spirit.   I said that last sentence in a humorous, facetious way because I know you have no idea how to walk by the Spirit. This is one of the most challenging things to learn how to do living in the kingdom.   When God transferred us to the kingdom of His son, a whole new life begins which is nothing like the life, we learned from birth and continually experienced living in the domain of darkness.   I admit this was an extremely hard thing for me to learn once I became a Christian. God teaches how to walk by the Spirit in the Bible, but I am sorry to say that we are normally more interested in being average than we are in being exceptional. To walk by the Spirit takes a considerable amount of exceptional spiritual discipline.   But if you have come this far with these podcasts you must have a heart that wants to learn and grow. By the way, this is what a true disciple of Jesus is – someone who desires to learn and grow. And that is what we will be focused on for the next section of Lessons From The Tent.  Well, that’s it for today and once again there is just one thing – Get ready to be taken on the ride of your life because learning to walk by the Spirit is the most challenging and fulfilling thing you will ever do.   ------- Guitar by Cole Criske 2020 All rights reserved For great coffee order Cole's coffee here: https://colescoffeeco.com/ ------- Produced by Dereck Bradley Contact us at mike@lessonsfromthetent.com

  2. Sep 28

    Gods Plan for Dealing with the Fall and the Evil Snake | Section 04 Episode 55

    SECTION 4  Everyone is well acquainted with purpose. The majority of things we do every day all have a distinct purpose for them. Some are obviously far more important than others, but we cannot function without purpose. This is how God made us and it is how normal responsible people live.  This next section is all focused on the singular purpose God has for us humans. We started these lessons with the reason we humans are here on earth and that is to inherit the kingdom.  But now we are shrinking down that purpose to an infinitely small one that is to actually touch every facet of our lives. I always find it amazing how much God is able to take what appears to be a small thing and expand it into truths of gigantic magnitude. That is what we will see with this section titled The Ultimate Purpose of The Good News of the Kingdom.   I hope you are able to understand the purpose God has for your life in a whole new magnificent way as we work through section 4.    LESSON 55 God’s plan for dealing with the fall of mankind and the evil snake.  Biblical References:  Genesis 22:18a (1)  Galatians 3:16 (2)  John 3:16/John 17:3 (3)  Hebrews 4:16 (4)  1 John 3:8b (5)  Hebrews 10:12/Colossians 2:13, 14 (6)  Hebrews 10:18/Psalm 103:12/Colossians 1;13, 14 (7)    Good morning and welcome to another Lesson From The Tent. Following the two previous lessons, today I would like to continue by examining one of the most exciting verses in the Bible. We are going to see God’s plan to fix the fall and stop the evil snake’s power to prevent God’s favored ones from continually living the blessed life.  To accomplish such a thing would be impossible except that this is all the result of God’s doings. No one else but God could do this. It is also the one thing Satan has spent all his efforts trying to prevent. But with all his greatest efforts, he could not stop God. And there is no chance of anything preventing God’s plan from taking place exactly as He said it would.  The passage I am referring to is a prophecy concerning a future seed of Abraham which is how God will restore us fallen, un-surrendered people, back to the original blessed life. It is also what God does to dismantle Satan’s power over the favored ones.  Here is the passage I am referring to. It may only be one sentence long, but its truth flows through every moment of time since the first day of creation and it will still be working forever after the last day of life on earth. Here is that prophecy.  “In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed,” (1)  God is speaking to Abraham, who is considered the father of the Jewish people. And this prophecy says that his seed will come and restore all the nations back to the original blessed way of living. The seed this is referring to is Christ as the Bible so beautifully states. Listen as God gives more details about this prophecy.  “Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, ‘And to seeds.’ As referring to many, but rather to one, ‘And to your seed,’ that is, Christ.” (2)  This word blessed used in this prophecy is the same word used in Genesis 1 which means Jesus came to restore us fallen humans back to the original “blessed” relationship that God established with Adam and Eve in the beginning.   And Jesus is not restoring us to a once-a-week blessed experience during a church service. Jesus’ restoration allows God’s favored ones to live in this blessed or surrendered state of being twenty-four hours a day.   When Adam and Eve listened to Satan and un-surrendered to God, their relationship with Him was instantly broken. In the new intimate partnership that Jesus restores us too, this relationship is eternal, meaning it cannot be undone. (3) Nothing can change it.  This prophecy concerning Jesus reminds us how important the blessed life is to God because this is the very reason Jesus allowed Himself to be crucified. I remind you again, that He wasn’t crucified to keep us from hell. As it says in this passage Jesus was crucified to restore us to the unlimited blessed relationship God designed us to have with Him.   If someone surrenders in this way to God, honoring Him as superior, worshipping and praising Him, then there is no reason God would ever send them to hell. Jesus paid the full price due for all our transgressions, sins, and iniquity, therefore God is free to respond to us the way He has always desired which allows us to draw near with confidence to the throne of His grace so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (4)   And because of what Christ did, we can draw near to God anytime and anywhere no matter the condition of our heart. The Apostle Paul experienced this in the dungeons of jail and so have many others since then. I personally witnessed many people come to the throne of God’s grace from jail during the years I worked in prison ministry.   And there also have been many who experienced this blessed life while suffering through horrible persecution over the past two thousand years. And as they did, so often it is recorded that they looked up to the heavens and praised and worship God despite the heavy persecution they were going through.  There are no limits on where a person may be, or in what state of being they may be in; nothing can prevent someone from experiencing the restoration to the blessed life that God promised would take place through the seed of Abraham.  Along with this amazing promise God also gives another astonishing truth that took place because Christ was crucified on the cross. Listen to what God said Jesus accomplished.  “The Son of God appeared for this exact purpose: to destroy the works of the devil.”  (5)  If you understand what this verse says it should be joyful and transformative. Jesus appeared to destroy the works of the devil. The original word translated “destroy” means to loose someone who is bound and set them free.   When we think about the works of the evil snake that we talked about in the two previous lessons and apply this verse to the effects of what Satan has caused over history, we see the fullness of what Jesus accomplished with His death, burial and resurrection. He obliterated and demolished the works of the devil.   Though the evil snake Satan is still alive as a fallen angel his power has been rendered useless because there is nothing, he can do to cause God’s favored ones to lose their redemption and be transferred back to the domain of darkness. The kingdom is an eternal surrendered lifestyle, but nothing can remove us from it.   Fail as we may at times surrendering to the reign of God, Satan has no power over our lives or our failures once we become transferred to the kingdom of God’s beloved Son. We have been transferred once, for all time. (6) And there are no limits to God’s grace and forgiveness.   Being rescued from the domain and darkness and transferred to the kingdom is an eternal decree and an event that cannot be undone. Even by the evil snake himself. Though Satan is more powerful than any of us, he is but a worm to God.  The restoration that Jesus brought us removes everything preventing someone from being un-favored by God. They can never lose their status because God’s grace and forgiveness is eternal. (7)   Well, that’s it for today, but once again there is just one thing – God’s plan for dealing with the fall and the evil snake is nothing less than miraculous and all His favored ones are the fortunate benefactors.    ------- Guitar by Cole Criske 2020 All rights reserved For great coffee order Cole's coffee here: https://colescoffeeco.com/ ------- Produced by Dereck Bradley Contact us at mike@lessonsfromthetent.com

  3. Sep 24

    The Evil Snake in Action | Section 04 Episode 54

    SECTION 4  Everyone is well acquainted with purpose. The majority of things we do every day all have a distinct purpose for them. Some are obviously far more important than others, but we cannot function without purpose. This is how God made us and it is how normal responsible people live.  This next section is all focused on the singular purpose God has for us humans. We started these lessons with the reason we humans are here on earth and that is to inherit the kingdom.  But now we are shrinking down that purpose to an infinitely small one that is to actually touch every facet of our lives. I always find it amazing how much God is able to take what appears to be a small thing and expand it into truths of gigantic magnitude. That is what we will see with this section titled The Ultimate Purpose of The Good News of the Kingdom.   I hope you are able to understand the purpose God has for your life in a whole new magnificent way as we work through section 4.    LESSON 54 The evil snake at work  Biblical References:  Genesis 1:28a (1)  Job 1:1 (2)   Job 1:8 (3)  Job 1:13-15 (4)  Job 1:16 (5)  Job 1:17 (6)  Job 1:18 (7)  Job 2:7 (8)  Job 2:5 (9)  1 Peter 5:8 NLT (10)    Good morning and welcome to another Lesson From The Tent. Let me begin by reminding you where we left off last week. We started to examine the word blessed which is one of the most important words in the Bible because it shows us how God wants us to relate to Him. (1)   All humans are to think of God and respond to Him through the blessed life. And what is essential to know is every human will be held accountable for whether they did or did not relate to God exactly like this.   If someone truly does surrender to God in respect, honor, praise and worship, this is something impossible to hide. A person cannot have a proper relationship with God in secret.   The attributes of the definition of the original word blessed must be expressed outwardly through the way a person lives if someone truly surrenders to God.  Now, let’s bring back the evil snake Satan. God does not reveal how long the first two humans lived in the Garden of Eden before Satan came into the picture. But when he did, immediately he devised an evil plan to trick the first two humans into un-surrendering to God.   So how did Satan get them to do this because they did not have a natural bent toward sin as we do? They were still in the righteous image of God. He did this by causing Adam and Eve to question whether God really told them not to eat from one particular tree in the garden. And once Satan got them to doubt their disobedience to His commandment naturally followed.  And when Satan got Adam and Eve to un-surrender and disobey God, they then quickly hid from Him in fear. They were no longer in the righteous image of God because their disobedience had completely distorted God’s righteous image in them. Since then, every person is no longer in the righteous image of God at birth. Because of this it is not easy for anyone to live surrendered to God’s reign in the manner we should.  But there is yet another reason why it is so difficult to stay true to God’s original blessed way to live. In the book of Job, we see Satan doing what he loves to do, and it is a scarry thing. Here is how the story begins.  “There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job; and that man was blameless, upright, fearing God and turning away from evil.” (2)  As you can see, God considered Job a special person and Satan could not stand that. He hates everyone surrendered to God’s reign, and especially if they live the way Job did. But now we get to see the evil heart of Satan in action.   I want to make this very clear at the beginning, God loves Job, but He allowed Satan to extremely test him. (3) Satan is limited by God concerning what he can do, but what we see is how evil the snake Satan is when allowed to tempt God’s favored ones.   Satan first causes the unruly Sabeans to come take Jobs oxen and donkeys while they were plowing his fields and kill the servants who were working them. (4)  Next, Satan causes a fire to fall from heaven, and it burned up all Job’s sheep and shepherds who watched over them. (5) Satan then caused the Chaldeans to come and steal Job’s camels and kill all the servants with them. (6) After that Satan caused a great wind to destroy the house Job’s sons and daughters were eating at and all of them died. (7)   Even after all that Satan was not yet done with Job. He next brought a miserable illness of boils to attack Job covering him from the top of his head to the soles of his feet making him even more miserable. (8)   So, why would God allow Satan to do all this to Job? The Bible tells us exactly why. Satan told God that Job only followed Him because God treated him so well. If God would remove His protection from Job, he could get him to “curse” God to His face. (9)   Make sure to catch this, the original word translated cursed is the very same word translated blessed in Genesis 1. When used as Satan did, this word blessed becomes a euphemism meaning the exact opposite of what it normally means.   We then see that Satan’s whole purpose for doing all he did to Job was to get him to “un-surrender” to God’s reign so he would stop praising and worshipping and obeying God.   This is always Satan’s modus operandi. He thinks the only reason people follow God is because God takes such good care of them. But if God would remove His hand of protection from Job, Satan thought he could prove God is not worthy of kneeling to.   Despite all Satan did, Job never un-surrendered to God’s reign proving how wrong Satan was. God is worthy of our devotion to Him no matter how bad our lives get. Even though Job physically, psychologically, and emotionally suffered as much as any human ever has, he never gave in to what Satan was trying to do with him. And that is the ultimate lesson from the story of Job – God is worthy of our surrender, worship and devotion no matter what our struggles may be.  But let me now ask you an important question, has Satan made any headway in getting you to un-surrender to the reign of God? I certainly hope not, but that is what the evil snake is always trying to do.   Listen to what God says about this.   “Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone he can devour.” (10)  Satan rules the domain of darkness and continually works on our freewill to influence us not to live the surrendered life.   But Satan doesn’t always use great tragedies to do this. As powerful as he is, Satan is also extremely wise. He knows how to manipulate our human emotions through discouragement, temptation, complacency, bitterness, poverty, sickness, and a lust for more things.   Unfortunately, any one of these can easily get us to un-surrender. But God knows this better than we do and He has an amazing plan to counter all the evil actions of Satan as you will see in the next lesson.  Well, that’s it for today but once again there is just one thing – Life is meant by God to be lived willingly surrendered to His reign so we can rule our world correctly. But be aware that an evil snake wants to stop you from living the blessed life.  ------- Guitar by Cole Criske 2020 All rights reserved For great coffee order Cole's coffee here: https://colescoffeeco.com/ ------- Produced by Dereck Bradley Contact us at mike@lessonsfromthetent.com

  4. Sep 16

    In The Beginning | Section 04 Episode 53

    SECTION 4  Everyone is well acquainted with purpose. The majority of things we do every day all have a distinct purpose for them. Some are obviously far more important than others, but we cannot function without purpose. This is how God made us and it is how normal responsible people live.  This next section is all focused on the singular purpose God has for us humans. We started these lessons with the reason we humans are here on earth and that is to inherit the kingdom.  But now we are shrinking down that purpose to an infinitely small one that is to actually touch every facet of our lives. I always find it amazing how much God is able to take what appears to be a small thing and expand it into truths of gigantic magnitude. That is what we will see with this section titled The Ultimate Purpose of The Good News of the Kingdom.   I hope you are able to understand the purpose God has for your life in a whole new magnificent way as we work through section 4.      LESSON 53 In the beginning  Bible References:  Genesis 1:27, 28 (1)  Genesis 1:28a (2)    Good morning and welcome to another Lesson From The Tent. I had a very interesting experience a few weeks ago with something that happened about twenty feet from my tent. One day while I was sitting here at my desk with the side of the tent rolled up, I noticed my cat was sitting at the base of a tree staring up the trunk. She wouldn’t take her eyes off something that was way above her.   Since I couldn’t see what it was from here, I got up and walked out to see what it might be. What was catching my cat’s attention was a good size rattlesnake, up in the tree, wrapped around a branch, hissing and rattling the tip of his tail nonstop.  We are not fond of rattlesnakes. We have several children here and rattlesnakes don’t care if you are young or old. They will strike anyone who gets too close. I have seen many rattlesnakes in my life, but I have never seen one in a tree.   After a couple of minutes of watching him, I figured out why he was in the tree and why he was so upset. My grandson Lukas was just weed whacking the tall grass around the tree and probably spooked the snake so much that He slithered up into the tree.   We have plenty of gopher snakes that we encourage to live here but we don’t let rattlesnakes run free on our property. I contemplated for a couple of minutes how in the world was I going to get that snake out of the tree so I could kill it. I saw Lukas over by our grove and quickly hollered for him to come help me. He did and was just as startled as I was on seeing the rattlesnake up in the tree.   I put my cat in the car so she would be out of harm’s way while Lukas looked for one of the many shovels, we have leaning on trees around our property just for situations like this. I found a long enough branch on the ground to reach the snake well above us and Lukas quickly returned with a shovel. The rattlesnake was still angry as could be and I took the long branch and started to prod him lose. The more irritated he got the more he released his coiled neck from around the tree. His head was dropping lower indicating he wanted to drop to the ground, so I used my stick and held his head against the tree trunk so He could not drop. Lukas then positioned himself perfectly and struck the rattlesnake with the shovel chopping off his head.  The head dropped to the ground and with a little more prodding with my branch I got the snake’s body to release from the branch and also fall to the ground. Success. We bagged him and off to the trash can he went.  I let my cat out of the car and went back to writing inside my tent while Lukas went back to weed whacking. Just another day on the property.  I tell you this story because it is pertinent to the next section of lessons. As you have probably already figured out, it will concern a snake; only the snake I want to talk about is far worse than all rattlesnakes or any other poisonous snake that harms people and sometimes kills them all around the world.   The snake I am referring to though causes several million worse results in a single day than all the poisonous snakes in the world have throughout history. The snake I am referring to is Satan and yes, He is the worst serpent in the universe.  I would like to take you back to the sixth day of creation when God created the first two humans. Let me read from the Bible about this great event. Here is what it says.  “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and said to them. ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’”  (1)  The first thing I want you to notice is God said He created “man,” in His image and we find out that “man” is both male and female. In this passage the word man is referring to all mankind and therefore both male and female are created in the image of God.   That is a very significant concept to understand. These are the first two humans to exist on earth, and all mankind comes directly from them. God established that we humans are to rule the earth, subdue everything in it and fill this planet with people created in the image of God.   All living things like fish, tigers, birds, rodents and butterflies were created to inherently do what God created them to do. They had no freewill to choose to do something different so they have always fulfilled God’s will for them. Mankind though was the only thing God created that He gave the freedom to choose to do His will or choose to do something different.  Now let’s look at one of the most important words in the Bible and it is found in this passage about God creating man and woman. And it happens to be the first thing God did with His new human creation. Here it is.  “God blessed them.” (2a)  This word blessed defines what mankind’s relationship with God was meant to be, and it also defines how mankind was supposed to live every moment of their days on earth. Only God could use one word to define all this. The basic definition of this word is to kneel or surrender. This word does not mean to physically bow. It means they willingly kneeled or surrendered in their heart. It also means they were to respect and honor God recognizing His superiority which leads them to worship, praise, honor and respect Him. That’s the way it was meant to be right in the beginning.  That would also apply to everyone born from them in the future. You can see that God wanted all humans to populate the earth, rule over it and subdue everything in it while kneeling to God’s reign over them. And they do all this while praising, worshipping, respecting and honoring Him.   That is the foundation of mankind’s relationship to God and it’s how all humans were meant to function in the world. Lock on to that thought because we will be looking at this further in the next several lessons.  Well, that’s it for today and once again there is just one thing – In the beginning God established how mankind was to relate to Him and how they were to live in the world, so if you are a man or a woman, you know exactly how you were meant to live, but watch out for the snake.  ------- Guitar by Cole Criske 2020 All rights reserved For great coffee order Cole's coffee here: https://colescoffeeco.com/ ------- Produced by Dereck Bradley Contact us at mike@lessonsfromthetent.com

  5. Sep 8

    An Appeal from God Concerning The Good News of the Kingdom - Part 8 | Section 04 Episode 52

    SECTION 4  Everyone is well acquainted with purpose. The majority of things we do every day all have a distinct purpose for them. Some are obviously far more important than others, but we cannot function without purpose. This is how God made us and it is how normal responsible people live.  This next section is all focused on the singular purpose God has for us humans. We started these lessons with the reason we humans are here on earth and that is to inherit the kingdom.  But now we are shrinking down that purpose to an infinitely small one that is to actually touch every facet of our lives. I always find it amazing how much God is able to take what appears to be a small thing and expand it into truths of gigantic magnitude. That is what we will see with this section titled The Ultimate Purpose of The Good News of the Kingdom.   I hope you are able to understand the purpose God has for your life in a whole new magnificent way as we work through section 4.    LESSON 52 An appeal from God concerning the good news of the kingdom (part 8)  Bible References:  John 5:24 (1)  John 10:10 (2)   Luke 4:43 (3)  2 Corinthians 6:1, 2 NLT (4)  Good morning and welcome to another Lesson From The Tent. This lesson will be a summary of the past 51 lessons. I won’t be examining each one of them. Instead, I will summarize the purpose behind all these lessons.   Recently there was a huge flood in Nepal as the result of a large piece of a glacier breaking off and sliding down into an existing canyon river. The catastrophic events that followed killed hundreds and maybe thousands because there are many still missing. I don’t mean to lessen the devastation that occurred, but I would like to bring attention to something I saw during that disaster which is pertinent to our summary.  The amount of water roaring down the river in Nepal included ice, huge boulders, buildings and bridges that had washed out which made this extremely fast-moving muddy river a killing machine. If you got caught in this chaos, the chances of surviving would be slim at best.  What I find interesting though is there were people watching the devastation from a supposed safe distance who got as close as they could to witness all the chaos even though the land they were standing on was quickly being consumed by the river of mud and debris. Many of them were overwhelmed in an instant by the expanding, forceful turbulent river.   There were others standing high on top of buildings who were hoping they were safe but found out too late they were very wrong as the river completely tore down their building and they drowned. Some below the river chaos had no idea what was going on above them and because of their ignorance many of them died. Yet, in the middle of this disaster there were some people who did everything they could to rescue anyone they saw even at their own risk of dying.   Now, what does this disaster have to do with a summary of the past 51 lessons? Most of the people in the world are in a similar situation. The purpose of our human existence is to become favored by God so we can inherit the kingdom. And this is where the connection is and it is no less serious than what is going on in Nepal.   The majority of the people around the world are completely unaware of the disaster they face every day. Even though God has always been very clear about this. Listen to what Jesus told us.   “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.” (1)   Christ came to give us life (2) which means if someone does not have this life, they are already dead in God’s assessment. And the disaster that awaits them after they physically die is greater than any death that occurred in Nepal.  Just like many of the people who thought they were safe watching the torrent of muddy water rushing down the river until it spread out and consumed them. So, it is with all those who play around with the many religions out there. Religion, no matter how close you get to it, will not save anyone.  After all these lessons about the kingdom and how to become favored by God there are some important questions that must be asked − where are you regarding what you have learned so far? Are you someone who likes to hang around religion with nothing more than a curiosity to see where it all goes? Are you someone who could care less about what God says about the domain of darkness because you are only interested in what you can get out of life now?   In the early part of Jesus’ ministry, He explained that He came here to go from city to city throughout Israel and tell them about the good news of the kingdom. (3) Jesus constantly explained in detail what the kingdom was but as He taught, He engaged with people caught up in the blindly ignorant catastrophic river of the domain of darkness and offered a hand of rescue to them so they could be saved.  His purpose wasn’t just to fill people’s heads with knowledge about His kingdom. He wanted people to understand as much truth as possible so it would stir up their curiosity and encourage them to do everything they could to be in His kingdom.  It’s great to understand God’s purpose for life and all that His kingdom is, but if that truth does not take you to the place where you desperately desire to be rescued from the domain of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of God, you will still miss the entire reason you are alive and therefore you will continue to be washed down the devastating river of blind ignorance. And this state of being may feel ok today but it will get dramatically worse when you physically die.   When I set out to summarize these past 51 lessons my goal was to help you see that there is much more than just learning about the truth of the kingdom. You need to clutch onto God’s hand reaching out to rescue you and grab it with all your might. You may or may not have another chance, but the Bible is very clear that today, right now, is the day to be rescued. Listen to what God says about the urgency of this.   “As God’s partners, we beg you not to accept this marvelous gift of God’s kindness and not ignore it. For God says, ‘At just the right time, I heard you. On the day of salvation, I helped you.’ Indeed. The right time is now. Today is the day of salvation.” (4)  Just like those caught in the flood in Nepal when you understand how desperate your plight is how foolish you be if you rejected the hand reaching out to save you.   And if you saw any videos of those being rescued, they didn’t casually grab the hand extended to save them. They desperately clutched the hand or leg or whatever was used to help them and wouldn’t let it go until they knew they were completely safe.   So where are you? Have you by faith grabbed ahold of God’s hand reaching out to rescue you from the domain of darkness? And if you have are you surrendered to Christ’s reign over you, and strongly desire to have a relationship with Him? Don’t take this opportunity lightly. Seize the moment and come join the others living the abundant life in the kingdom of God’s beloved Son.  Well, that’s it for today but once again there is just one thing – Jesus wants you to be in His kingdom so much that He died and resurrected to become the hand reaching out to save you from the looming disaster of God’s righteous judgment that will one day sweep you off to Hell forever.  ------- Guitar by Cole Criske 2020 All rights reserved For great coffee order Cole's coffee here: https://colescoffeeco.com/ ------- Produced by Dereck Bradley Contact us at mike@lessonsfromthetent.com

  6. Sep 1

    The Ultimate Purpose of the Good New of the Kingdom - Part 7 | Section 04 Episode 51

    SECTION 4  Everyone is well acquainted with purpose. The majority of things we do every day all have a distinct purpose for them. Some are obviously far more important than others, but we cannot function without purpose. This is how God made us and it is how normal responsible people live.  This next section is all focused on the singular purpose God has for us humans. We started these lessons with the reason we humans are here on earth and that is to inherit the kingdom.  But now we are shrinking down that purpose to an infinitely small one that is to actually touch every facet of our lives. I always find it amazing how much God is able to take what appears to be a small thing and expand it into truths of gigantic magnitude. That is what we will see with this section titled The Ultimate Purpose of The Good News of the Kingdom.   I hope you are able to understand the purpose God has for your life in a whole new magnificent way as we work through section 4.    LESSON 51 The ultimate purpose of the good news of the kingdom (part 7)  Bible References:  Hebrews 4:16 (1)  Romans 8:1 (2)    Good morning and welcome to another Lesson from the tent. One of the greatest things that will come from praying without ceasing is the transformation of how we fallen, poor in spirit people think, feel and act. The reason this occurs is because the more we commune with God the more attentive we become to His voice and to His presence. The more attentive we are, the more we will learn new ways to think, act and feel and God certinally knows we desperately need that type of change.   In the middle of intense struggles though, we can easily lose sight of what is important. The gentle voice of the Holy Spirit often gets pushed aside and the struggles of life become all we can think about. When this takes place, suddenly praying without ceasing will be nothing more than an expression of tears, anger, frustration, and questioning why God doesn’t change what is causing our difficulties.  When life gets this way there is a verse in the Bible that addresses these difficult times. Listen to God speaking directly to this.  “Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (1)  The original word translated confidence defines our ability to talk to God in the middle of intense struggles. It means we have complete freedom to say what we are thinking and feeling.   When we come to God this way, the first thing to remember is He is not like us. He does not get riled up because we are. He doesn’t respond in kind to our hostile attitudes. As this verse says, He sits on a throne of grace where we can find help in our time of need.   Let’s start with the word grace. This word is fundamental to our relationship with God, for without it there is no communing with Him. Truthfully, we have far too much wrong with us to freely come into His presence especially when our feelings, attitudes, or actions are clearly wrong. Let me share with you some of the words that define this beautiful word grace. They are sweetness, loveliness, favor, joy, delight, and good-will.   While sitting on His throne of grace God asks us to bring Him all our hurt and pain, and when we do, we are welcomed with – sweetness, loveliness, favor, joy, delight, and good-will.  As beautiful as this is God says we also receive mercy. Here are some of the words associated with this great word: compassion, a desire to help, kindness, tolerance, forgiveness and soothing.  Even with all that these two words bring us there is still another concept that comes as the result of the salvation Jesus gives His favored ones. Listen to this:   “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (2)  Another way to say this according to the definition of condemnation is, there is no damnable judgement to those who are in Christ Jesus. Put all three of these word definitions together and our praying without ceasing becomes a freedom to pour our hearts out to God no matter what we are feeling.   This seems impossible when you understand the judicial nature of God, but that is the wonder of what Christ’s sacrifice for our sins has brought us – grace and mercy with no condemnation. What freedom God’s favored ones have while praying without ceasing.   Maybe one of the truest things we can say about life is it is a contrast of experiences. In the morning we can have a great day and just after eating lunch the opposite can take place, and suddenly the rest of our day is full of problems. Human joy can turn into sorrow in a few minutes. Laughter can turn into anger when a difficult situation comes crashing down upon our fun. That’s life and we all experience this contrast of feelings. Good can turn into bad and vice-versa in the blink of an eye.   This is also true of praying without ceasing. So often there are extreme contrasts between our thoughts and feelings and God’s. We can be angry one moment while God is happy. Later, we can be happy, while God sees a real need for a change in our attitudes. This contrast with God and how we approach Him and life is the result of how little we know and understand God.   This is where memorization, meditation and praying without ceasing has its greatest value to us. The more we practice all three of these the more we will understand God and the less major contrasts there will be between His thoughts and feelings and ours.   This is also where God’s throne of grace can nourish and soothe our struggling souls. We are free to pray without ceasing in the middle of intense feelings without fear of any repercussions from God. What a privilege it is to commune with our King knowing we do not have to fear retribution for being out of sorts with Him.   Joan and I have experienced some challenging moments during our struggles with cancer. Recently we were both physically getting the hell beat out of us during our cancer treatments. It was a challenging time to say the least. But God stepped in with His grace and mercy and gave us a weekend retreat on the beach for four days which was incredibly refreshing for our broken-down souls.   The crashing of the waves we could constantly hear. What a pleasant sound and very refreshing. The numerous playful dolphins that so often swam by brought much joy to our hearts. While lounging on the patio the smell of the ocean was always with us. During the four days we stayed in this beautiful beach house we were able to enjoy a wonderful refreshing of our souls. It didn’t take long at all, and we found ourselves praising God together for His goodness in the middle of our struggles with cancer.   Yes, life is a contrast of experiences. One moment we can find humor in how God is doing something in our lives and the next moment our praying without ceasing can turn into frustration and complaining.  What we can never forget is God is not a contrast of emotions and responses like we are. He is always consistent with His feelings and thoughts, and His are always in harmony with what His Bible says. This makes memorization and meditation on the Bible a necessity for praying without ceasing. Remember, we can be assured that there will be no damnable condemning response to us even when our thoughts and feelings are messed up.  Well, that’s it for today and once again there is just one thing ─ we can come boldly to the throne of grace whether we are happy or intensely discouraged and we will always find grace and mercy to help; so pray without ceasing no matter what you are going through.  ------- Guitar by Cole Criske 2020 All rights reserved For great coffee order Cole's coffee here: https://colescoffeeco.com/ ------- Produced by Dereck Bradley Contact us at mike@lessonsfromthetent.com

  7. Aug 25

    The Ultimate Purpose of the Good News of the Kingdom - Part 6 | Section 04 Episode 50

    SECTION 4  Everyone is well acquainted with purpose. The majority of things we do every day all have a distinct purpose for them. Some are obviously far more important than others, but we cannot function without purpose. This is how God made us and it is how normal responsible people live.  This next section is all focused on the singular purpose God has for us humans. We started these lessons with the reason we humans are here on earth and that is to inherit the kingdom.  But now we are shrinking down that purpose to an infinitely small one that is to actually touch every facet of our lives. I always find it amazing how much God is able to take what appears to be a small thing and expand it into truths of gigantic magnitude. That is what we will see with this section titled The Ultimate Purpose of The Good News of the Kingdom.   I hope you are able to understand the purpose God has for your life in a whole new magnificent way as we work through section 4.    LESSON 50 The ultimate purpose of the good news of the kingdom (part 6)  Biblical references:  Genesis 1:26 (1)  Romans 1:20 (2)  Good morning and welcome to another Lesson From The Tent. I want to continue looking at the ultimate purpose for the good news of the kingdom. Today’s lesson is one of the key differences between God’s way of thinking about this and ours. It is fundamental to our communion with Him.  I was just doing some premarital counseling with a couple I love dearly and the thing I wanted to talk with them about during the last sessions was; what is the first sign that a marriage may be in trouble. After fifty-six years of marriage my wife and I both agree that this is probably the first sign that a relationship is in trouble.   What I see as an early sign that a marriage is struggling is also a sign that our relationship with God is not close to being what it should be.  The sign that I am referring to is laughter and fun. When a couple who once desperately wanted to get married stop laughing and having fun, they have started down a road that only takes them further from the reason they got married in the first place.   Laughter and fun are crucial to any good relationship, and this is true of our “relationship” with God. The reason we humans enjoy laughing so much is because God created us in His image and likeness. (1)   I have found it impossible for many years now to not laugh with God often when I am memorizing, mediating and praying without ceasing. I have a lot of fun communing with Him and so often it leads to genuine laughter.   When I was a young follower of God I learned by rote that God does not smile or laugh or see things funny like I did. I felt my relationship with Him had to always be completely serious and if it wasn’t then I would be disrespecting Him.   No one ever said that directly to me in those exact words, but I learned this from watching others more mature than I pray and talk about God. Never once did I ever hear anyone refer to Him as fun. So, I learned this by rote, and it became influential in how I thought I should relate to God. Since then, I have learned how wrong I was.   I am a fun person. I enjoy laughing at myself and life. Joan and I often laugh at how we relate to each other. Laughter is fundamental to our relationship. And to think that marriage – according to God – is supposed to be a picture of His relationship with His favored ones. If that is so, then why would we ever think that laughter and fun should not be part of our relationship with Him? How foolish.  The world laughs and has fun because we were created too. Fun is crucial to life, and therefore laughter is such a good sign that we are enjoying life and therefore it should also reveal that we are enjoying God.   I mentioned in a previous lesson about God having a sense of humor with something I did and that He smiled at me when I told Him this. Don’t know if you caught this but I was enjoying an intimate relationship with Him when this occurred.   So often God makes me laugh when I am memorizing, meditating and praying without ceasing because my view of what I am thinking on is worlds different than His. As He shows me the differences His tone of expression is mostly cheerful because He is glad, I am listening and want to learn. And it often becomes obvious how foolish my view was.   I was desperately asking for His help the other day and for some reason He was strangely quiet, for quite a while. To tell the whole story would take way to long but when God did answer me through a very unusual way that I was not expecting, I laughed out loud for twenty-minutes because it was just plain funny.  At times He will interrupt me when I am serious about something and it will cause me to pause and think for a moment. Often, I will then end up laughing at myself for being so serious about something that had humor written all over it. I couldn’t see it at the time because I was so singularly focused on finding a fix for my problem.  The other day my son Dereck and I were talking about the characteristics of God that no one ever mentions and the first one that came to his mind was that God is a comedian; no one ever brings that one up when they are talking about Him. And I agreed wholeheartedly.   The Bible says that everything God created reveals His divine nature. And what creation reveals is so clear God says no one has an excuse for not knowing about Him. (2)   Creation reveals a lot about God if we would just stop and pay attention to it. For example, when you have finished listening to this podcast do yourself a favor and look up funny cat videos on the internet. Then ask yourself what the funniness of cats reveal about the divine nature of God. It is very obvious. Creation reveals God not only loves to laugh but He loves to make us laugh too. There are so many funny animals out there.   One thing this shows is, if we are to pray without ceasing there should often be laughter in our communion with Him or we are not communing with the God of creation. Instead, we are praying to an idol we have created in our mind as I did in my younger days.   Does that mean every time we talk to God we must laugh? Of course it doesn’t. We humans don’t laugh every moment of the day, so we shouldn’t expect to be laughing every time we commune with Him.   We all have some serious talking and listening to God when we pray without ceasing that would not necessitate laughter. But I want you to understand, that every problem we bring to God is almost laughable when we consider who we are talking to. Does God ever have a problem? No, never, there are no problems for Him. None whatsoever.   We learn from creation that all He needs to do is say something and it happens. That’s why when we bring a problem to Him, if we could see the terrible thing we are dealing with standing next to God, I think we would just smile or maybe even laugh out loud at how small our big problem was to Him.   We must allow ourselves to see things in a lighter way when communing with God because this is fundamental to a good and honest relationship with Him.   Well, that’s it for today but once again there is just one thing – Christ’s suffering for our sin opened a way into the deepest recesses of God’s being and as it does don’t be surprised if you discover He has a funny bone.  ------- Guitar by Cole Criske 2020 All rights reserved For great coffee order Cole's coffee here: https://colescoffeeco.com/ ------- Produced by Dereck Bradley Contact us at mike@lessonsfromthetent.com

  8. Aug 17

    The Ultimate Purpose of the Good News of the Kingdom - Part 5 | Section 04 Episode 49

    SECTION 4  Everyone is well acquainted with purpose. The majority of things we do every day all have a distinct purpose for them. Some are obviously far more important than others, but we cannot function without purpose. This is how God made us and it is how normal responsible people live.  This next section is all focused on the singular purpose God has for us humans. We started these lessons with the reason we humans are here on earth and that is to inherit the kingdom.  But now we are shrinking down that purpose to an infinitely small one that is to actually touch every facet of our lives. I always find it amazing how much God is able to take what appears to be a small thing and expand it into truths of gigantic magnitude. That is what we will see with this section titled The Ultimate Purpose of The Good News of the Kingdom.   I hope you are able to understand the purpose God has for your life in a whole new magnificent way as we work through section 4.      LESSON 49  The ultimate purpose of the good news of the kingdom (part 5)  Bible References:  Joshua 1:8 (1)  1 John 2:27 (2)     Good morning and welcome to another Lesson From The Tent. Today I would like to take God’s ultimate purpose for the good news of the kingdom to another level. And to do so I would like to share with you one of my all-time favorite verses in the Bible. It’s one that God used to rescue me from years of internal turmoil and change my life into a deep, intimate life, with Him. The passage I am referring to is this:  “This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.” (1)  To help take this concept to another level I would like to also talk about cows. There is nothing we could start this lesson with better than learning about how a cow produces milk. When a cow chews grass, she does it for a significant amount of time, then swallows it. From there it goes into one of her four stomachs to mix with her saliva and other enzymes to further break down the nutrients and turn the digesting grass into a cud. Then the cow will regurgitate the cud back into her mouth where she chews on it some more and then swallows it again. This time the chewed-up grass cud goes into her utter where more enzymes then turn it into life giving milk.  This is no accidental evolutionary miracle here. This is designed by God, to give us a living example of what it means to meditate because this is almost the exact process we need to go through when we do. The only difference is the cow’s stomach represents our brain, the grass represents God’s word, and the life-giving milk represents our intimate life with Him.   To meditate correctly we take something from God’s word and begin to think about it day and night trying to understand all He is saying. When we do that long enough, and do it with pleasure for this is key, our brain will then know this is important and will store it for further chewing on or meditating.   We need to continually, night and day, regurgitate or pull out the words we were previously chewing on and begin to think about them some more. I know in my case this process is not a two-time event. It takes numerous times to get out what I need to learn from it. Often, I will chew on a thought for days or several weeks; and many times, for months or even years.  But there is a difference between meditating day and night back in the Old Testament times and meditating while praying without ceasing today. Way back then the Holy Spirit did not live in God’s people. Only a very select few had this magnificent gift. God’s people had to learn about Him through their own meditation on the Law so they could then do everything it said. And, according to God this would be sufficient for them if they did it day and night, for that is the only way they would have the resolve to obey what His word says.   Now let’s merge meditating on God’s word with praying without ceasing. Today when we meditate, while praying without ceasing, we have the Holy Spirit to do what cows enzymes do to help our minds “digest” the word of God so we can learn far more from it. We are not limited by our fallen flesh as the Old Testament people were. The Holy Spirit of God reigns inside all His favored ones and He will take God’s word and use it to teach us, which is exactly what the Bible says He does. Listen to this:  “As for you, the Holy Spirits anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His Spirit teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him” (2)   As you can see God wants to work with us and teach the things His word reveals so we can obey all it says, for this is the only way we can experience the abundant life Jesus came to give us.   But you have got to realize – God wants us to ingest His truth deep into our hearts so it can help change our thoughts into ones like His through praying without ceasing while we meditate.  Let’s connect these two concepts together so we can see how this is the key to abiding with God in an intimate partnership with Him.   God said we must meditate on His word day and night and He also says we are to pray without ceasing. This means that these two concepts are meant to harmonize and work together; and that is exactly what they do.   Now, to meditate on God’s word, we must first memorize it. And that is a somewhat lengthy process. I have spent years memorizing and one thing I have learned is to memorize God’s word to the degree I can continually regurgitate it for meditation; I need to go over it almost every day for a month or more. It takes that long for God’s word to get deep into my brain where I can then pull it out anytime I want, even years later.   As I memorize God’s word, I constantly talk to Him about it every moment I can. He knows exactly what it means and how it fits into the many aspects of living.   But the greatest value I find in God’s word is what it reveals about Him. When I memorize and meditate on His word, I continually talk to God about it so I can learn what He is revealing concerning Himself. And I love to listen as the Holy Spirit continually reveals things about God as I memorize and meditate on the Bible.   That’s one of the reasons memorization takes so long, and it’s also why God wants us to meditate day and night. At best we have a thimble full of understanding of God while the Bible contains an ocean of truth about Him. And one of God’ greatest desires is to fill us with a river of life-giving truth about Himself.  Meditating day and night and praying without ceasing are connected like our soul and spirit. They are inseparable and should always be thought of that way. Meditation and praying without ceasing are the only way to experience an intimate and personal relationship with God in the fullness He desires.   Well, that’s it for today and once again there is just one thing – Memorization, meditation, and praying without ceasing are the greatest disciplines you can do for your mental and spiritual health.  ------- Guitar by Cole Criske 2020 All rights reserved For great coffee order Cole's coffee here: https://colescoffeeco.com/ ------- Produced by Dereck Bradley Contact us at mike@lessonsfromthetent.com

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4 Ratings

About

As the title says, this is a podcast about just one thing. Each lesson is roughly six and a half minutes long with the focus on what is the purpose of life. Please don’t confuse this with a religious podcast because it certainly is not. This is a podcast about life from God’s perspective – what He created it to be. Unfortunately, whenever God is mentioned, people instantly think we are talking about religion. That’s a shame because God hates to be confused with man made religion. God is the author and giver of life. Mankind created religion I suppose to help soothe their frustration/discomfort with their personal struggles. And because religion doesn’t solve those issues, we keep creating more religious expressions under the guise that this one is better than that one. I will not be picking on any religious group during these podcasts. I only hope to introduce you to the whole purpose of life on earth according to the Creator of all things and how He designed us to live. I hope you will give these Lessons From The Tent a try and get to understand the purpose for your life.  If you have any questions feel free to contact me at mike@lessonsfromthetent.com

Information

  • Creator
    Mike Bradley
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    60
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2025 All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    Lessons From The Tent

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