The Word for Everyday Disciples with Dave DeSelm

Dave DeSelm
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A weekly podcast bringing biblical teaching to everyday people in ways they can understand and put into practice. Visit us at DaveDeSelmMinistries.org.

  1. Abiding in Joy: The Joy of Celebrating

    6D AGO

    Abiding in Joy: The Joy of Celebrating

    We’ve been talking about how to build a big connection to Jesus because the stronger the connection, the better the fruit, and the greater the joy. In this message, I want to look at a practice we don’t often think about in terms of spiritual rhythms, and that’s the practice of celebration—marking moments with joy and gratitude.  God understood the power of joyful celebration. God dotted the calendar of His people with it. Regularly, He told His people to stop their work, to gather together, and celebrate. While we no longer are required to honor those feasts, there is still a principle for us to follow.  Set aside regular times for celebration.  What might that time of celebration look like? Here are three suggestions:  Feasting: Feasting was always an important part of the celebrations we read about in the Bible. Indeed, there’s just something about preparing and sharing a meal together with family and friends that produces joy. Friends: One author wrote, “One of the greatest keys to a good celebration is to share it with joyful people.”   Fun: There is restorative power in play.Proverbs 17:22 says, “A joyful heart is good medicine…” That’s why it’s important to make celebration an intentional part of our abiding.  Now, I know that there is a lot more to life than fun and games. And I’m fully aware that some of you come into this season in real pain and with real challenges.   But what I'm trying to establish today is that, even in the midst of that seriousness, it's okay to make room for celebration.  It’s okay to pursue joy.  In fact, it's more than okay – it’s essential.  The joy of the Lord is your strength. (Neh. 8:10) Don’t wait until everything is great to celebrate. Begin today.  “THIS is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.” (Ps. 118:24)  No matter what you’re facing, the fact that God is with you and loves you and will see you through the deepest of waters is worthy of celebration.  And that joy will give you strength.   Text: John 15:1-11 Originally recorded on August 6, 2017, at Fellowship Missionary Church, Fort Wayne, IN

    28 min
  2. Abiding in Joy: The Joy of Praying

    AUG 31

    Abiding in Joy: The Joy of Praying

    In this series, we’ve been exploring ways to build a strong connection with Jesus. In John 15, He calls it “abiding” in Him. What we’ve discovered is that the stronger the connection, the better the fruit and the greater the joy.  We’ve talked about the importance of rest and nutrition in producing good fruit in our lives. Today, we are looking at the necessity of breathing, and the way we do that is through prayer. What word comes to mind when you think of prayer? For some, it’s joy! Prayer is a delight. But for others, the word might be bewilderment, frustration, disappointment, or more likely… guilt.  But I want to propose that prayer is not a responsibility to be pushed into, but a relationship to be pulled into. Put another way, sustainable prayer comes not from gritting our teeth, but by falling in love. Our God is amazingly relational. And He wants us to share life with you!  Our souls were made to walk with God and talk with God.  And when that happens… when we abide like that…all sorts of good things can happen that lead to bearing fruit and knowing joy. God wants to make every moment of your life glorious with His presence. It’s not just that God is for us, but that He wants to be with us.  He wants to fill our souls with His presence. Lately, I’ve been challenging myself with this:  How many moments of my life today can I fill with a conscious awareness of God’s presence?   The life of abiding is not a life of more religious activities.  It’s a life of inner peace and contentment as you walk with and talk with One who not only loves you but is big enough to see you through whatever you may face. I’ve also discovered that…the best way to start living life with God is in small moments. Talk to God while watching the sunrise, while taking a walk, or while out fishing.  Converse with Him when stuck in traffic, while waiting on hold, or while washing the dishes.  Celebrate what He has done for you. Thank Him for that which you so often take for granted. And then, before you know it, you’ll find yourself sharing with Him those things that concern you.   What are you doing?  You’re praying!  However, I’m doing this not out of guilt.  Not out of duty.  But simply as an overflow of my relationship with Him.    Out of your moments of devotion, you will find it natural to offer petition and make intercession. The more we abide with Jesus, the more our prayers align with His will and the more He delights in answering those prayers.   Text: John 15:1-11 Originally recorded on July 30, 2017, at Fellowship Missionary Church, Fort Wayne, IN

    24 min
  3. Abiding in Joy: The Joy of the Word

    AUG 24

    Abiding in Joy: The Joy of the Word

    In John 15, Jesus tells us that if we hope to have lives of fruitfulness and joy, we must abide in Him. We must remain intimately connected with Him at the soul level. The stronger the connection, the better the fruit and the greater the joy.  In this series, we’re exploring ways to build a strong connection with Jesus. The analogy of a grapevine helps us identify some of those practices. Today, we are considering the importance of nutrition.  Just as a grapevine needs good soil from which to draw nutrients in order to produce an abundant harvest, so we need to put our roots down deep into the soil of God’s Word. Psalm 1 paints a picture of a tree planted by streams of water that bears abundant fruit. Then the psalmist draws the parallel for us.  We, too, will bear good fruit if we are well-nourished. And that nourishing is found by meditating on the law of the Lord – that is, the Word of God. What does it mean to “meditate” on God’s Word? The Hebrew word used in the Old Testament for meditate is the word “hagah.” Literally, it means “to growl.” The picture is that of an animal gnawing on a bone. Chewing on it. Savoring it. Digesting it.  This is what we’re to do with Scriptures. Take it in. Chew on it. Make it part of you. How might that happen?  How might we move from merely reading the Word to truly eating up and digesting the Word? Here are a series of questions that might get you moving in that direction.  Call them “Meditation Questions.”  As you read the Bible, ask yourself these questions. You may want to get a notebook and write down your answers. What got my attention? What stood out to you? What did I learn about God? It may be something new, or it may be something old that strikes you in a fresh way.What did I learn about myself? This takes it from the theoretical to the personal.What am I going to do about it?  It’s not enough to just “hear the Word.” We must be “doers” as well. What is a practical, tangible step you can take to make this Word part of your life?   Text: John 15:1-11 Originally recorded on July 23, 2017, at Fellowship Missionary Church, Fort Wayne, IN

    30 min
  4. Abiding in Joy: The Joy of Resting

    AUG 17

    Abiding in Joy: The Joy of Resting

    In John 15, Jesus uses the analogy of a vineyard to describe the life of a disciple. Jesus is the vine, and we are the branches. Like branches grafted into a grapevine, so it is with our relationship with Christ: the stronger the connection, the more the fruit, and the greater the joy.  Put another way: Fruitfulness is the result of abiding, and that leads to joy.  To abide is to remain intimately connected to Jesus at the soul level.  The stronger that connection, the greater the fruit in our lives.  Kingdom fruit: the kind that comes from allowing God to work through you, making a difference in the lives of those around you. Fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control. Looking more and more like Jesus. In this series, I want to talk about abiding.  How do we build a strong connection to the Lord? We’re going to start with a practice that may seem strange, and that’s rest.  I don’t know much about growing grapes, but one thing I’ve learned is that in order to have an abundant harvest, there has to be a season of rest—of dormancy.  So it is in the life of a disciple. You were created to not only work, but to rest.  And if you only attend to the former and not the latter, you simply can’t keep producing fruit, and you’ll end up losing your joy. Thus, at the very beginning, God showed the…   Daily Rhythm of Rest In the creation narrative, we see that every day there was “day and night.” A time to work and a time to rest. This daily rhythm was part of the “very good” before sin ever entered the world.  Sleep loss can have a profound impact on otherwise healthy individuals…and on our discipleship. How are you doing with your daily rhythm of rest? God also established a… Weekly Rhythm of Rest God was so concerned that our penchant for work might get out of hand and would cost us dearly, that from creation, He set in motion a rhythm whereby a fruitful life might be sustained – a weekly rhythm between work and rest. Then to make sure we didn’t miss the point, He both modeled it (Gen. 2:1-3) and mandated it (Ex. 20:8-11). The Bible calls it Sabbath, a one-day-in-seven cease work order. Finally, there is a… Seasonal Rhythm of Rest There are seasons in life that require an intensive outpouring of effort. Times when work demands a lot from you. It’s wise to plan for a more extended time of rest during or after that season to refuel and renew for another season of fruiting…and greater joy.   Text: John 15:1-11  Originally recorded on July 16, 2017, at Fellowship Missionary Church, Fort Wayne, IN

    30 min
  5. Counterfeit Gods: Wrestling with God

    AUG 10

    Counterfeit Gods: Wrestling with God

    With the powerful hold idols have over us, is there any hope that we might dethrone these counterfeit gods?  The answer is, “Yes!” …IF we take to heart this foundational truth.   Idols cannot simply be removed – they have to be replaced. How do we do that?  If we hope to deal with our idols, what we need is not merely a vague belief in God but a profound encounter with God. Jacob had such an encounter, and it changed him forever.  We met Jacob and his wives, Leah and Rachel, in a previous message. By the time we get to Genesis 31, Jacob has settled into married life and is prospering quite nicely. But Jacob’s success became a threat to his father-in-law, Laban, and tension began to grow between them. So, Jacob decided it was time to part ways and return to his homeland.  By now, his parents were gone, but his twin brother, Esau, the one Jacob had deceived, was still around. And the last time they had seen each other, Esau threatened to kill him.  As Jacob and his huge entourage of family, servants, flocks, and herds drew near, he received the alarming news. Esau was heading his way, accompanied by a small army.  Jacob was sure Esau was coming to make good on his threat. So, he springs into action. He sends out some servants with a huge gift of livestock for his brother. Then he divides his family into smaller groups and sends them across the river. Now night is falling, and Jacob is alone.  All of his life, Jacob had been a “control freak.” He had sought to control people and circumstances to get what he wanted. He demonstrates the ultimate counterfeit god: SELF. The idol of self comes in many forms: self-sufficiency, self-determination, self-rule. Every one of us is challenged by the idol of self. Like Jacob, you’ve determined to be a survivor.  And like Jacob, you survived—but at a huge cost. Jacob’s life had been one long wrestling match to get a blessing.  He wrestled with Esau to hear it from his father’s lips.  He had wrestled with Laban to find it in Rachel’s companionship.  But it hadn’t worked.  He was still needy and empty on the inside.  And now, he wrestles with God Himself. A mysterious figure comes to Jacob in the night, and they wrestle, struggling all night long, until at last, the Lord touches his hip and it is wrenched out of its socket.  But rather than let go, Jacob clung all the harder. “I won’t let go until you bless me!” He realized that nothing else matters. If he didn’t have God’s blessing, he didn’t have anything. At long last, Jacob recognized the true God and surrendered to Him. God gave him a new name—Israel. And He left him with a reminder of who is really in control: Jacob would walk with a limp for the rest of his life. Jacob’s transformation came after a profound encounter with God.  And, in the end, that is the only remedy against idolatry. When you know God as GOD, you don’t need anything or anyone else. And when you give control to Him, you don’t have to bow to the idol of self.     Text: Genesis 31-32 Originally recorded on December 12, 2010, at Fellowship Missionary Church, Fort Wayne, IN

    30 min
  6. Counterfeit Gods: Money Talks

    AUG 3

    Counterfeit Gods: Money Talks

    You’ve probably heard the saying “Money talks.” What would money say to you if it wanted to be your idol? And what might God say in contrast? 1.     Money says: “Look at how much more others have than you.”  This counterfeit god uses envy to enslave us, driving us to want more. Proverbs 14:30 says, “A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones.” God says: “Be content with and grateful for what you have.” The antidote to envy is gratitude.   2.     Money says: “You don’t have a greed problem.” Money insists, “You don’t have enough money to be called greedy. Only rich people are greedy.” Yet Jesus warned an audience of mostly poor people, “Watch out! Be on guard against all kinds of greed.”   God says: “Recognize that the tendency toward greed is a constant challenge.” The antidote to greed is generosity.   3.     Money says: “Worry about me!”  We have the illusion that we won’t worry about money if we have more money. But the fact is, the more money we have, the more we think about it and worry about it.  God says: “Trust me as your provision and source.” There is a linkage between seeking God’s Kingdom and knowing God’s provision.   4.     Money says: “Giving may be a good idea, but you can’t afford it.” One of the biggest lies money tells is that if you had more money, you’d be more generous. But statistics show that people with lower incomes give a higher percentage of their money than people with higher incomes.  God says: “Give, not because you can afford to, but because you can’t afford not to.”  If you don’t start understanding the role of generosity when you don’t have much, you will not grow into it when you do have much.   5.     Money says: “If you just keep getting more, eventually you’ll have enough.” But it’s like a treadmill of acquisition; we never get there. We never reach “enough.” God says: “The antidote for consumerism is compassion.” Only when you choose to spend on behalf of others instead of on yourself will your heart begin to change.   Text: Luke 16:13; 12:15-34; 19:1-8   Originally recorded on December 12, 2010, at Fellowship Missionary Church, Fort Wayne, IN

    28 min
  7. Counterfeit Gods: The Search for Love

    JUL 27

    Counterfeit Gods: The Search for Love

    An idol is anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your attention and affection more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give. Idols can take on many forms: money, success, power, popularity, or physical attractiveness.  But idols can also take on human form.  When you look to a person for the kind of deep affirmation and acceptance that only God can provide, it results not only in pain but in bondage. The Bible graphically illustrates this in the story of Jacob and Leah. Jacob had a twin brother, Esau. Esau was their father, Isaac’s favorite—his idol. Because of this, Esau grew up proud, willful, and impulsive, while Jacob grew up cynical, bitter, and conniving.  After Jacob deceived his father and received the blessing Esau desired, Esau vowed to kill Jacob. So, Jacob fled for his life.  He ended up in his Uncle Laban’s house, where he got a job tending sheep. There he met Laban’s daughters—Leah and Rachel. Leah had “weak eyes,” while Rachel was beautiful. Jacob was utterly smitten by the lovely Rachel. He had to have her. He would do anything for her. She became his idol.  This unhealthy desire consumed Jacob. Rachel was not just the wife he wanted; she was the savior he needed.   Jacob asked her father for her hand in marriage. But Laban deceived the deceiver, Jacob, and after working for seven years, Laban gave him, not Rachel, but Leah. Jacob had to work another seven years for Rachel. Perhaps the greatest casualty in this story is Leah. The daughter whom her father did not want is now the wife her husband did not want. As a result, Leah had a hole in her heart every bit as big as the one in Jacob’s heart. And now she tries to fill it with a person. She sets her heart on getting Jacob’s love. Genesis 29:31 says that “when the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, he enabled her to conceive, but Rachel remained childless.” The Lord gave Leah sons, and with each birth she thought, “Maybe now Jacob will love me.” But it didn’t work out that way. Ironically, after all that pain, Leah is the one who shows spiritual progress in all this. When her last son is born, her response is, “This time I will praise the Lord.” It appears that she has finally taken her heart’s deepest devotion off of a person and put it on the Lord. She has dealt with her idol. I look at what God did in Leah, and then I consider what God did for her. If you track the genealogy of Jesus, you will see that of all Jacob’s sons, He came through the line of Judah, Leah’s son.   God reached out to the girl that nobody wanted, the unloved one, and made her the ancestral mother of the Messiah.  Salvation came to the world, not through the beautiful Rachel, but through the unwanted, unloved Leah. No human can bear the burden of godhood. No person can meet the deepest needs of your soul. Jesus is the only one who can live up to the hopes, dreams, indeed, the expectations that we all have. And only when we place Him in the temple of our hearts in a position of unrivaled prominence will we be in a position to love anyone well.   Text: Genesis 29 Originally recorded on December 5, 2010, at Fellowship Missionary Church, Fort Wayne, IN

    28 min
  8. Counterfeit Gods: Good Things Gone Bad

    JUL 20

    Counterfeit Gods: Good Things Gone Bad

    Most of us believe nothing could be better than seeing our dreams come true. In that pursuit of happiness, it never enters our minds that getting our heart’s desires could, in fact, be the worst thing that ever happened to us. Good things can go bad. Why does getting your heart’s desire so often lead to disaster? It’s because our hearts are idol factories. We can take a good thing, indeed a gift from God, and if we’re not careful, we can end up elevating it to a place where it was never meant to be, giving it a position it was never fit for.   An idol is anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your attention and affection more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give. One of the most classic pictures of this is found in the Old Testament book of Genesis.  Abraham was born into a wealthy family of idol-worshipers. But God made him a staggering offer: if he would forsake his idols, leave his ancestral home, and follow God’s leading, the Lord would bless him beyond his wildest dreams. More specifically, this promise would be fulfilled through Abraham’s offspring.  The problem was, Abraham had no offspring. He and his wife were childless. But he took God at His word and stepped out in faith.  The years passed, and still, no child came. Finally, when Abraham was 100 years old and Sarah was 90, it happened. Miraculously, a son was born to them. They named him Isaac.  From the moment of his birth, he was the delight and the idol of his father’s heart. So, “God stepped in to save both father and son from the consequences of an uncleansed love.” (Tozer) God tested Abraham, asking him to sacrifice his son—his only son, whom he loved. The Lord knew Abraham had to deal with his idol, and as painful as that was for Abraham, the alternative would have been even more painful.    If a person is put in the place of God, it creates an idolatrous love that will smother the person and strangle the relationship. Abraham passed the test. He obeyed, and God stepped in, stopped Abraham, and gave him back his son. In our lives, things will inevitably arise – even good things – that we will turn into idols.  It may be your children, your husband, wife, girlfriend, or boyfriend. It may be success in athletics, or a dream to be on the stage, or making it big in business.   Idols demand to be fed. We will sacrifice for them, or to them. Yet they never end up delivering. Good things can and often do go bad as we turn them into our idols.  And it’s then that God, in His mercy, calls us to a Moriah moment.  Mark it well: It will not be easy.  The most painful of times will be when our “Isaacs” are challenged, threatened, or even removed.   Sometimes it seems as if God is killing us when He challenges our idols.  In reality, He’s saving us.  Though it appeared that God was being excessively cruel to Abraham, in reality, God was freeing Abraham to be a great man who would become the Father of our Faith.       Text: Genesis 22:1-18 Originally recorded on November 21, 2010, at Fellowship Missionary Church, Fort Wayne, IN

    29 min
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A weekly podcast bringing biblical teaching to everyday people in ways they can understand and put into practice. Visit us at DaveDeSelmMinistries.org.

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