Cecil Taylor Ministries

Podcast Blog: Season 6, Episode 2 - David Gregory, How God Makes Faith Easy

I've had a lot of guests on the Practical Faith Academy podcast talk about how hard it can be to practice your faith each day. But I'm not sure anyone before David Gregory has been so confident that daily faith practice can be easy.

David Gregory is a New York Times best-selling author of award-winning books. In this podcast, Gregory shares his view on how faith can be easy when we realize the truth of Jesus’s statement, “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Gregory explains how the Father, Son, and Spirit all offer pathways to easy faith. He also shares insights into his latest book, "One of Us," and into how the church can address the next generation.

I came away from this podcast renewing my commitment to let Jesus live through me with the help of the Holy Spirit. Although Gregory and I didn't talk about Romans 8, I view that chapter as a high point of the Bible, because it shows how Father, Son, and Spirit actively reach out to bring us into relationship.

Highlights of the podcast:

3:25 Why Gregory thinks it’s important to put faith into practice

6:14 Why faith is easy because of something Jesus told us

10:08 Three factors that make for a life of faith

16:21 Why Gregory wrote his “One of Us” novel with Jesus originally coming to earth today as a Latino from South Texas

21:34 How his novel still mirrors the gospel

23:36 Would Gregory have written this 2024 book differently today given the clamor over immigration?

25:49 How fiction helps make key points difficult to make in nonfiction

28:20 What is the church today missing from the life of Jesus?

33:13 How our “new heart” enables us to be faithful

35:49 What the gospel offers to a new generation

38:32 How to find Gregory’s books and resources

The Practical Faith Academy podcast can be played directly on the Cecil Taylor Ministries website at https://www.CecilTaylorMinistries.com/podcast. While on the site, please check out everything Cecil Taylor Ministries offers, including our Instant Content books and video studies for individual learners, small groups, and churches.

The episode is also available on major podcast platforms (Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio, YouTube, and others) and hosted on Podbean. Search on each platform for "Practical Faith Academy."

Seven-Day Practical Faith Blog: Knowing the Truth

The United States Secret Service supervises the inspection of counterfeit money. They train their agents and share with merchants how to determine if a piece of currency is authentic.

For each bill, a set of characteristics makes it authentic. For example, all Federal Reserve notes, from the $5 bill on up, have a clear thread embedded vertically into the paper. The thread is inscribed with the denomination of the note and is visible only when held to the light.

The Secret Service's intent is to train people on how to determine the bill is real, not to determine how the bill could be fake. Studying the real characteristics helps one know the authenticity. An expert would know each bill so well they could readily identify fake ones.

As Jesus followers, we want to know what is authentic and what is not. We can best determine what is authentic by engaging with it so much that we know when something is true or not true. I'm thinking primarily of two examples: the Bible and the messaging of the Holy Spirit.

If we study the Bible and soak it in, we will know whether someone's usage of the Bible is accurate. Learning the overall narrative of the Bible as God's redemption of the world is useful. No, we won't know every verse. But we'll catch it if someone gives us an interpretation or an out-of-context verse that doesn't make sense against the whole.

Reading the Bible for ourselves is vital. I recently engaged with someone who held a lifelong interpretation of a subset of the Bible. By showing the four verses ahead of this subset, I was able to clearly prove their interpretation was the exact opposite of what scripture actually said. The person was stunned and shaken because they had always been told and taught the wrong interpretation.

When we are taught or told something from the Bible, we should look it up for ourselves. We should identify and read the exact book, chapter, and verse. We must be sure to read the verses before and after it so we understand the proper context. We should meditate on the scripture and what God intends to tell us. Only then can we determine the authenticity of both the message and the messenger.

Likewise, if we are engaged with the Holy Spirit, we become trained in what the voice or message sounds like. In my experience, Spirit messages are always wise, loving, patient, kind (even when forceful), and aligned with scripture. The Holy Spirit is not going to tell you to kill your children; that comes from a different voice or a mental illness.

I heard a good analogy from an upcoming podcast guest, Kevin Taylor. He described how in a store, he might become separated from his mother. But he knew when she was on the move because he recognized the rattling of her keys, even softly from a distance. Similarly, we learn the voice of our Shepherd through experience, proximity, and listening.

Authenticity is a valuable attribute. Let us be as shrewd as serpents and as innocent as doves, to paraphrase Jesus in Matthew 10:16, becoming astute and blameless as we seek God's authentic truths.

===I mentioned my Practical Faith Academy podcast above. It's been nominated as Best Interview Podcast by the Selah Awards, a prominent Christian content awards program. Selah will announce the winner next week. In the meantime, Season 6 of Practical Faith Academy is underway with an outstanding slate of guests talking about how to put faith into practice each day and in all your endeavors. Search for "Practical Faith Academy" on Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio, YouTube, and Podbean, or listen on CecilTaylorMinistries. com/podcast.===

Seven-Day Practical Faith Blog: Introspection after Impact

When we do harm, even if unintentionally, our image of ourselves as a good person is threatened. As I mentioned earlier in this series on putting faith into practice by apologizing, we try to convince the other person - and ourselves - that our intent was not to harm or offend them. This is how we defend our precious view of ourselves.

But once we do the work of apologizing for our impact - not our intent - hard work remains. We must be introspective about why impact happened.

It's difficult to inspect ourselves until we redefine "good person." Typically, we see a "good person" as one who doesn't make mistakes, one who doesn't harm others. What if we redefine "good person" as one who acknowledges mistakes, rectifies them as much as possible, and analyzes what went wrong and how to prevent future mistakes?

After decades of driving, I had my first accident that impacted another person. At a slow speed, I struck a motorcyclist from behind. As vehicles lined up in an odd-angle right turn lane where you had to strain to look back for oncoming traffic, I had heard him gun his engine in front of me and thought he had left. In actuality, he had then hit the brakes, determining that he couldn't make it into the traffic flow. When I accelerated to get into an opening and turned my head forward, I was stunned to see him still there. I slammed on the brakes but couldn't come to a full stop before I bumped his vehicle and jarred him.

I evaluated why this had happened. I decided I needed a new procedure. After looking back into traffic, I needed to make one last check to the right to see if anything had changed since I last looked before accelerating.

Similarly, when we have offended or harmed someone, we need to evaluate how to prevent future occurrences.

Then when we inevitably harm someone again, we need a plan for recovering gracefully. We can pause and listen when corrected. We can respond with "thank you" rather than "I'm sorry you took it that way." Instead of defensively explaining our intent, we can say, "I'm going to sit with that."

Such an approach builds our stamina. We stay in the conversation even when it feels tense, awkward, or emotional.

This process helps when we revisit the apology series core passage from Matthew 5:23-24 (NIV), in which Jesus instructs us:

===“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift."===

Jesus gives the high-level command, but it is easy to see a lot of details are missing from a potentially messy conversation. We can make it less messy with introspection in advance and discipline in the moment.

===I'm so excited about season 6 of the Practical Faith Academy. Some great guests are coming aboard, with Art Wilson as the first. Even though he despised gang members, God called Wilson into ministering to them. We discuss his incredible, hazardous journey on Season 6, Episode 1, available now. You'll learn the amazing things God can do when you obey. Visit the podcast section of my website or search for "Practical Faith Academy" on my YouTube channel or your favorite podcast platform.===