Trying to figure out the next step in your life's journey? Today, I chat with Chris Pace about his new book Level Up. As I tell the story in this episode, I actually met Chris recently while on vacation, and he gave me a copy of his book. This interview will share several insights with you about discovering God's will. Here is a link where you can find more about Chris' book: https://chrispace.org/

I will also paste my Amazon review below...
I was incredibly blessed to come across this book by Chris Pace! It spoke directly to some issues I have been dealing with in my own life. I really took my time with it because I wanted to soak it all in. Sometimes I didn't even read a full chapter before I put it down because it gave me so much to think about.

I highly encourage this book to people who feel "stuck" at their current place in life and want direction on discovering what God may have next for them. If you want encouragement, are feeling aimless in life, or you need a recalibration of your calling, this book can give you the tools you need to reset yourself.

I also encourage you to finish it, because I found that the book became better and better the deeper I got into it. This surprised me because many books try to put its most important information first and then they kind of drag out the rest to increase the page count. Not this one. Every chapter got more engaging and practical, all the way up to the very end. I couldn't believe some of the insights I was still discovering even in the last 10 pages of the book.

I think anyone who reads this book will find something helpful! Easily 5 stars.

Today, I am sharing an episode from my other podcast, Weird Stuff in the Bible. Each week, I dive into a different weird topic regarding bizarre things in scripture. Hear more by subscribing to this podcast as well! And tune back in on Cross References next week to hear an interview with Chris Pace of Messenger International about his new book, Level Up.

On a recent episode of this podcast, I was discussing a weird story about Moses in Exodus 4, I came across another pretty odd verse that generates some confusion among Christians: Exodus 4:21.

Now, I didn’t want to stop and analyze that verse because it would have taken me on a rabbit trail, and I was already trying to talk about a different weird thing, and I would have had to go down a weird-ception of weird-within-a-weird. So I decided to come back to it this week.

And what does Exodus 4:21 say? Well, it’s as Moses is on his way back to Egypt, and God says

(Exodus 4:21)

“When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go.

So that’s strange because it raises the question of whether Pharaoh even had a choice about how everything was going to play out. Because if you know the story, Pharaoh doesn’t want to let the people go, and he pays a pretty steep price for it.

And yet Pharaoh never relents. All throughout the story, his heart is harder than your grandma’s fruit cake at Christmas.

But this claim that God would harden Pharaoh’s heart makes it seem like Pharaoh wasn’t even really able to let the people go if he wanted to. So what gives? Did Pharaoh have free will?

And perhaps more importantly to us: do you and I have free will?

I find this to be weird, and I’d like to explore why it’s in the Bible.

Turn to Exodus 4, and let’s get weird.

0:00 - Introduction

2:40 - What is a Hard Heart?

6:20 - God vs Pharaoh

9:40 - Is Anyone at Fault?

13:40 - Next Time

15:25 - Would God Harden our Hearts?

If you want to get in touch, my email is weirdstuffinthebible@gmail.com

Hosted by Luke Taylor

Last week I talked about how I did my parental duty and instilled the love of star wars into my child.

Now let me talk about one of the stupidest things in star wars.

And it comes from the same place that all of the stupidest things in star wars come from: the new Disney movies.

This one is flies right into the face of common sense.

It comes from the inner turmoil experienced by the villain of Episode 7: Kylo Ren.

Kylo is on the dark side. He seeks to prove himself a true, fully committed disciple of the dark side throughout the movie, and throughout the film he makes some comments. One of them is:

Forgive me. I feel it again. The pull to the light.

Throughout the film, Kylo is dealing with this “quote-unquote-temptation” to turn good, and this is one of the lines he uses.

Now, to write a line like that betrays any understanding of how the human heart actually operates. We want to be good, but we wrestle with the temptation to be bad.

Like it says in Galatians 5: the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh…to keep you from doing the things you want to do.

The Bible says we “want” to do good, but it’s our sinful desires that pull us back. But Kylo wants to be bad and wrestles with a temptation to be good. It’s completely backwards. It’s like saying, “Pray for me, I’m really tempted to eat this salad when I know I should order a double cheeseburger.”

There is not something naturally inside of us that pulls us toward righteousness and away from evil. What is inside of us pulls us to the flesh, to our natural instincts, toward selfishness and evil, toward…the dark side.

We aren’t tempted toward the light. The decision to pursue the light does not come from something within us naturally; but something that is given to us by God.

To be drawn toward the light requires God to put a new heart and a new spirit within us.

Which sounds like what we’ve been studying as we go through the book of Ezekiel, and it’s something you’ll find out about today on the Cross References podcast.

0:00 - Introduction

3:00 - The Spirit

11:00 - The Spirit Empowers You

14:15 - The Spirit Seals You

17:30 - The Spirit Guides You

27:00 - The Spirit is a Point of Connection Between You and God

32:00 - Next Time

34:15 - A Note about Hearing from the Spirit

If you want to get in touch with me, send an email to crossreferencespodcast@gmail.com