#pastorbrad

[freshhopeespanol]

🥳 Thank you Pastor Brad for all you do to share and bring hope into our lives! Thank you for showing us that it is possible to live well in spite of the hardships of life. May God bless you and allow you to continue and thrive in this vital ministry! — We love you! 🤗

[freshhopeespanol]

¿Sabías que?!!!... 🤩 ¡¡El blog de Pastor Brad, PastorBrad.blog, ha sido reconocido como uno de los 50 Mejores Blogs de Salud Mental por una organización Australiana!! — ¡¡¡FELICIDADES Pastor Brad!!!

👉 https://pastorbrad.blog 👈

#BradHoefs #PastorBradHoefs #PastorBrad #FreshHope #FreshHopeForMentalHealth #FreshHopeParaLaSaludMental #SaludMental #MentalHealth

[walkthesame]

Unworthy Worshipers (#wtsdevo God)

by Pastor Brad

The concept of worship in the modern church is greatly diluted and weakened from its original intent. When I say “worship,” you no doubt immediately thought of a “worship band” or “Praise & Worship” music or a “worship leader.” And, certainly, these are vital aspects of the worship service in a church, but much of the formulaic ideas behind such offices or genres center around the idea of the worshiper doing the action.

In fact, the colloquial definition of “worship” might be summed up as a religious act performed individually or corporately for the reverence of a deity. So you might be thinking, “So, what? What’s wrong with that?” Well, nearly everything. Did you notice who’s doing the action in that line of reasoning? Operating under the common usage of the term, worshiping God in my acts, my devotion, my service, my singing, my praying, my performance. Who’s really doing all the “doing” there? You are — and when the focus of worship is shifted more towards your “doing” than Jesus’s “done,” we have a major theological conundrum.

Don’t get me wrong, the worshiper surely has a role to play in the whole thing we refer to as “worship.” However the primary message of a worship service should never rest on the worshipers getting the focus, attention, or glory — rather, everything should be point back to Jesus Christ and what He’s already accomplished for us on the cross, which is the basis upon which all our rejoicing and reveling and praising rests.

I would contend that the primary purpose of worship is to remind you just how unworthy you really are. The significance of worshiping with like-minded believers, or by yourself, is the honest recognition of just how insignificant you are and how magnificent God is.

You see, worship itself is all about awe — about the breathtaking, awe-inspiring depths and heights of love the Father has gone to redeem and rescue His people. Worship, in truth, is the bewildered and astonished response of unworthy people ascribing worth to an infinitely good God. Such should be the design and end in worship.

If ever our awe and attention is more focused on the production and people in worship and not the Person, we’re in trouble. True awe and wonder of God puts everything in its place — and worship is supposed to bring believers to this place. Only as you come to realize God’s infinite glory and majesty and holiness, and your deep and desperate unworthiness, will you truly worship God.

Worship, at its core, is all about the proclaiming of the gospel. If the “worship service” isn’t drawing you to stand in stupefied wonder at the marvelous grace of God, something’s off. Too often, we handicap worship into a specific “service” or block, which creates a subconscious distinction between “worshiping” and “preaching.” Such a distinction was never designed to exist. The entire church service is one of worship, from the singing, to the preaching, to the greeting, to the fellow-shipping, to the nursery-keeping, all of it should be done in the worship of God and “to the praise of his glorious grace” (Eph. 1:6). “The purpose of the worship service is not what we get out of it but the God who has drawn us into it.” [1]

Therefore, if “singing praises” to God, what we normally refer to as “worship,” is as much about Christ’s gospel as preaching is, then the message should be the same, the focus should be the same. All should be done to exalt the sum and substance of God’s glad tidings, which is free promise and gift of His free grace. Worshiping should teach us what the gospel teaches, which is, as Luther says, “not what I ought to do, (for that is the proper office of the law,) but what Jesus Christ the Son of God hath done for me: to wit, that he suffered and died to deliver me from sin and death.” [2]

The resonance of our worship shouldn’t be what we’ve done or what we ought to do for God but only what He’s done, what God through Christ and the Spirit has accomplished for undeserving sinners. Preaching and worshiping is all about “proclaiming glad tidings of salvation for the guilty, the unworthy, and the perishing.” [3] Sounding God’s praises ascribes worth to His perfect and gracious redemption of lost and wretched wrecks.

The voice of worship isn’t about perfect harmonies or booming melodies or complex light shows or professional band experiences. The voice of worship is reverent sound of unworthy worshipers ascribing worth to God’s condescending mercy.

1. Wilson, Jared. The Prodigal Church: A Gentle Manifesto Against the Status Quo. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2015. p. 59. Print. 2. Luther, Martin. A Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians. Philadelphia: Smith, English, & Co., 1860. p. 206. Google Books. 3. Booth, Abraham. Glad Tidings to Perishing Sinners. London: J. Chidley, 1839. p. ix. Google Books. __________________________________________________________

Devotional Series: God (#wtsdevo God)

By: Bradley \ Personal // Walk The Same

[walkthesame]

Loving Difficult People (#wtsdevo love)

by Pastor Brad

Of all the traits that are to be associated with believers, perhaps the hardest (at least for me) is remaining patient and kind with difficult people. I’m sure you’re familiar with these sorts of individuals — co-workers, classmates, associates, even friends in your circle that, for whatever reason, can just irritate and aggravate you to no end.

When the apostle Paul says that “love is patient and kind” (1 Cor. 13:4), that’s doesn’t mean for only those people you get along with — those friends you really click with. That’s everyone: friends, enemies, acquaintances, superiors, subordinates, and yes, those difficult people.

The mark of a true Christian is that of unbounded love without reservations or restrictions or regulations, even for those that grate on your nerves and your patience. And this type of love isn’t something you can accomplish or demonstrate on your own volition — it’s only inspired by continual reflection upon the One who is love itself.

The most important and vital habit we can practice is a daily remembrance and reflection upon God’s gospel, His Word of “free unbidden love, — love to the lost, love as amazing and immeasurable as that of the Son of God.” (Bonar)

God’s Word is really a revelation of Himself. All of its pages, all of its lines seek to disclose for you the very mind of the Triune God and His thoughts towards you — thoughts of love and grace, mercy and redemption, deliverance and forgiveness. These thoughts are bound up in the gospel, in the Person of Christ, who is the express image of the mind of God (Col. 1:15; Heb. 1:3).

Throughout the Scripture, God is desiring to show you that His love is free and that His grace meets you right where you. This reality should hit home for us the fact that even when we don’t deserve it, God gives us mercy anyway, love anyway, grace anyway. He gives and gives, without any thoughts of reciprocity or payback.

Such should our love for others be. Love that isn’t concerned with the character of the other person or the chemistry we may or may not have with them. Love that doesn’t shy away from the difficult but actually goes out in search of them. Love that doesn’t ignore the desperate but earnestly seeks to relieve them. We’re not told who to love — we’re just told to love.

Sure, Jesus says in the Gospels to “love your neighbor” (Mark 12:31; cf. Luke 10:25-28), but the inference of this command is “love everyone” — everyone’s your neighbor, whether you like them or not. In Luke’s account, Jesus follows this up with the telling of the parable of the Good Samaritan, in which a Samaritan gives medical, physical, and financial aid to a Jew — a scandalous showing of mercy if there ever was one.

Loving difficult people is hard, it’s, well, difficult. But, perhaps, no person you’re surrounded with daily should receive your love more than these people. But this is the exact type of love Jesus has for you! Love for sinners, love for rebels, love for the wrecks — “love to the lost, the guilty, the wanderer, the backslider, the rebel,—love without measure and without change,—love that is not regulated according to the worthiness of the object loved, or the amount of love expected in return, but love that embraces the unworthy.” (Bonar)

As you navigate this life and meet new, possibly difficult, people, never forget the free love God has for you — which will motivate the love you give to others.

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Devotional Series: Love (#wtsdevo love)

Posted by: Bradley \ Personal // Walk The Same

[walkthesame]

The Glad Hope of Fools (#wtsdevo hope)

by Pastor Brad

You may or may not know, but I’m an ardent fan of The Lord of the Rings — both Tolkien’s original works and film adaptations by director, Peter Jackson. Both the trilogy of books and movies comprise of an incredible masterpiece of storytelling and art.

There’s an intriguing line, though, in part three, The Return of the King. At this juncture, the kingdom of Gondor has been invaded and the siege of Minas Tirith is about to be underway. On the eve of “the great battle of their time,” Gandalf and Pippin have the following exchange:

“Tell me,” [Pippin] said, “is there any hope?” Gandalf put his hand on Pippin’s head. “There never was much hope,” he answered. “Just a fool’s hope . . .” [1]

This revelation of hopelessness is jarring, especially considering its source, Gandalf the White, a bona fide hero.

It’s a puzzling declaration, too, that he would call it a “fool’s hope.” The inside joke here is that Gandalf had repeatedly referred to Pippin (surnamed Peregrin Took) as a “fool of a Took!” Thus, in this case, hope would live on for this happy fool as the war broke out.

But if you’re wondering how this applies to you, well listen up, because you too have a fool’s hope! The Christian’s hope of salvation by free, unadulterated grace is the glad hope of fools!

Have you ever really considered how foolish your hope is in terms of worldly reason? It really is mind-boggling.

The apostle Paul admits as much when he says, “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor. 1:18). The cross is “folly,” it’s foolishness to the world, to the unbelieving heart and mind.

It doesn’t follow sound reason that a God would degrade and disgrace Himself so much in love that He would lower Himself to His creation — to man’s level. But such a foolish impossibility is what Jesus has accomplished for us, for you. Emptying Himself and taking the form and likeness of man is the great depth of humility to which Christ has stooped (Phil. 2:7-8).

Only a fool would hope in such humiliation. So it goes that God calls us to be happy fools for His sake. “For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Cor. 1:25).

To the world, it appears foolish, silly, and nonsensical to hope in the execution and death of Another. It’s absurd to the unbeliever that admission of hopelessness is the beginning of true hope — but that’s exactly what faith in the gospel is.

By declaring you have no hope left in yourself and that you believe in Christ’s salvation, you’ve just begin in your journey of hope — hope that is confident, sure, unshaken — hope that rests not upon the whim and fancy of man’s feelings but upon the firm, solid, and finished work of Jesus Christ.

Christian, hope on in the glad hope of fools!

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1. Tolkien, J. R. R. The Return of the King: Being the Third Part of the Lord of Rings (New York: Ballantine Books, 1983), p. 83.

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Devotional Series: Hope (#wtsdevo hope)

By: Bradley \ Personal // Walk the Same

[walkthesame]

Hope of the Morning (#wtsdevo hope)

by Pastor Brad

Things can seem pretty bleak nowadays. Violence is riddled through every news story. Racism is as pervasive as ever. Rampant adultery is tearing families and lives apart, leaving innocent youths in the wake. Bullies are making their presence felt, physically or virtually but always personally. Babies are still being murdered without cause.

If you just look around or look at your phone, it would appear that things are bad — almost as if there’s no hope. It would seem, at times, that God’s forgotten us. Maybe the deists were right, and God’s just an absent deity with no real investment in His creation. Maybe He just wants to watch the world burn.

But as dark as it may seem to be right now, take heart, because the morning is coming. Lift up your eyes and look to the sun because it soon will rise.

The night is only so long; the darkness won’t persist. The rage you see will give way to peace. The terror you feel will dissipate in relentless love.

Don’t give up the hope of the morning. Don’t let your confidence be shaken by the whims of fallible man.

“Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning” (Ps. 30:5). Joy is coming; let hope reign. For, “there never was a night so long that the day did not overtake it. There never was a morning without its morning star. There never was a day without its sun.” [1]

The sun will come and shine in all it’s tremendous effulgence, breaking the darkness and beating it back to its hell. That sun — that Son — comes and invades our darkness to bring forth His wondrous light. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5).

Indeed, we can be hopeful because it’s in this ominous darkness that the light shines all the brighter. “Light dawns in the darkness for the upright; he is gracious, merciful, and righteous” (Ps. 112:4).

Your night may not be over, but the morning is at hand, and with it comes hope manifest — the essence and genesis of all light, life, hope, and grace: the Son of Righteousness, Christ the Lord.

On Him, in Him, and to Him, forever hope!

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1. James, John Angell, Christian Hope (London: Hamilton, Adams, & Co., 1858), p. 161.

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Devotional Series: Hope (#wtsdevo hope)

By: Bradley \ Personal // Walk the Same

[walkthesame]

Dangerous Grace (#wtsdevo grace)

Words by Pastor Brad

Truthfully, there’s no “balanced” version of grace. The moment you try to temper grace you render it impotent — trying to cage grace is to make it powerful and ineffectual.

The reality of God’s grace for us is that it’s not only unconditional, it’s illimitable and uncontrollable. Man can’t put divine grace into human constructs or man made boxes.

Grace is sort of like Aslan in C. S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, where he’s described as follows:

“I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-beyond-the-Sea. Don’t you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion — the Lion, the great Lion . . . anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.” “Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy. “Safe?” said Mr. Beaver . . . “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.” [1]

God is good, but He’s not necessarily safe (Matt. 20:1-16), at least in our terms. There’s no such thing as a safe version of grace — it’s undomesticated and unruly and, to us, even a little unfair. It gives equally to everyone irrespective of their worth or their past. Jesus shreds all sense of deservedness or entitlement when it comes to grace.

Remember the story from Luke 17? Where Christ heals the ten lepers? (Luke 17:11-19). All of them cry out for the same saving mercy (ver. 13) — and all of them receive the same miraculous cleansing (ver. 14). But only one returns to say thank you (vv. 15-16).

However the truly wondrous part about this story isn’t that only one leper returned to show appreciation to Christ for what He did in his life, it’s that Jesus saved and healed all ten knowing that only one would come back.

You see, God doesn’t tender grace on the account that we’re grateful. Giving something and expecting reciprocation is not truly giving. If God was gracious to the measure that we’re grateful, we’d all be in terrible trouble.

Thankfully that’s not how God works — He bestows incredible, undeserved gifts for many who’ll never say thank you. His grace isn’t dependent upon our gratitude.

Christ frustrates and irritates us with His grace by taking the spotlight off our work and performance and puts it squarely on His generosity. Grace magnifies the Giver; it showcases His benevolence — that’s the point of this story! Furthermore, that’s the point of the gospel — to show us that grace comes to us one-way, with no expectations, no regulations, no hints of reciprocity, no conditional fine print.

The risk and danger of grace is that some will take advantage of it. Yet this doesn’t negate its power or disqualify its use. Ingratitude happens not when we think too much of God’s love, but when we think too little of it. However those who rightly and truly understand grace will spontaneously and instinctively be grateful.

“True grace contains a death-blow to all sin, and a powerful incitement to all goodness.” [2]

Grace awakens our self-centered hearts to the unfathomable love of our Savior. Grace leads to a life ruled by the love of God (Gal. 5:1-6). Grace leads to transparency and transformation (Luke 18:13-14). Grace makes you say, “I want to give more” (Phil. 3:10). Grace engenders to humility as you realize all God has done through an undeserving sinner like yourself (1 Cor. 15:9-10).

The heartbeat of the gospel is unmerited favor and unlimited mercy and unconditional forgiveness — the rhythm of Scripture is the grace of God.

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1. Lewis, C. S., The Chronicles of Narnia (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), p. 146. 2. Krummacher, F. W., The Flying Roll; or, Free Grace Displayed (New York: M. W. Dodd, 1841), p. 96.

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Posted by: Bradley \ Personal // Walk the Same

[walkthesame]

What is Grace *

Words by Pastor Brad

Christianity has its own set of buzzwords and jargon that, oftentimes, can completely sequester the unbelieving person. We throw words around like “saved” and “backslidden” and “justified” and “sanctified,” etc., without often qualifying or defining such phrases to ensure the utmost clarity for those unfamiliar with the faith.

Yet of all the Christian buzzwords currently employed, none have the power to sever, dismember, and dissolve relationships like that of “grace.” Yes, grace has become a 21st century Christian buzzword.

I content that the cause of so many problems within the Christian Church at large is the result of misunderstanding, misrepresenting, and misusing God’s gospel of grace. We’ve so misconstrued what grace is, what it does, and what it’s supposed to do that we’ve forgotten the original intent of grace in the first place.

The chief reason for this misconception regarding God’s grace is because of our addiction to control. Mankind is driven by an innate passion to control their surroundings. Whether you’re OCD or a hoarder, both are manifestations of our intrinsic need to control things. It’s an untaught trait—you don’t have to instruct a newborn to crave control, they do that automatically, often through cunning displays of vocal range and stubbornness.

Therefore, grace has been misrepresented by our finite attempts to digest it in terms we control. We’ve forgotten the true meaning of grace primarily because the fundamental quality of grace rips all control from us and leaves it solely with the Giver. Truly, there’s nothing more difficult for us to comprehend than God’s untamed, uncontainable, unconditional grace.

However, when this grace is preached and written about, it usually triggers a separation into one of two camps, who, while essentially distinct, we’ll see are fundamentally the same. These camps are legalism and license.

Legalism is man’s attempt to save himself by his own works. Legalists deem themselves righteous and view their lives as holy, presuming upon God’s grace and insisting to Him their own self-worth. It’s what happens when the focus turns to all that we need to be doing, instead of all that Jesus has already done. It wrongfully asserts that the more that’s done for God, to that degree He will love you— a markedly false and terribly defeating belief system.

Legalism always leads to pride, thereby discrediting its pious intentions upon attempt. It’s enslaving and directly opposed to the gospel because it shifts the focus from the Savior onto the servant, onto us, thereby warping the entire point of Jesus’s ministry, and the entire point of the gospel itself. Legalism is a works-based gospel, which, candidly, is anti-gospel.

This ideology is pervasive (unnoticed at times) because it promotes the thinking that you can control your own destiny. You want joy, peace, success, satisfaction, fulfillment, and salvation? Just do more, try harder, and become better. Legalism speaks to us and our innate spirit of achievement.

But, truth be told, legalism is a false gospel and, indeed, nullifies grace (Rom. 11:6). And because legalism is so opposed to grace, and because God loves to tender His grace, God hates legalism. He spurns any notion of ours that makes claim to His righteousness apart from the work of His Son. He loathes our attempts at performance-ism because they’re our feeble attempts to stand on the frail, rickety platform of our own conjured righteousness. Legalism totally ignores the cross and defiantly discounts the perfect sacrifice of Christ; that’s why God hates it.

License, however, is the belief that because God’s grace has come, we’re free to live and act as we please. It diminishes God’s expectations of us and declares that God’s demand for holiness is no longer in play. This devalues and demeans grace into some divine “get-out-of-hell-free” card, which is a mockery and marring of the gospel of grace itself.

License says that God doesn’t need perfection anymore. That, “It’s okay if you sin, we all do; here’s some grace.” It reduces grace, to nothing more than a “fix-all” epoxy that’s used to fill in the gaps of our paltry righteousness. It discounts the Savior into a “Mr. Fix-It” for our beggarly and pitiful attempts at religiosity and piety. It’s an easing of God’s law, and it creates in us a perversion of true Christian liberty. To proclaim freedom at the expense of holiness is to ignore what grace is and what the gospel is designed to do. License is easy to preach because it likewise speaks naturally to us. It’s inbred for us to want to be autonomous. You don’t have to tell your teenager to rebel! Who wants to be told what to do? Who wants rules? Our natural man surely doesn’t.

The banner under which license stands is, “Do whatever you want because grace is here!” It adulterates, bastardizes, falsifies, and warps the gospel just as much as legalism does. License, or exaggerated liberty, is also anti-gospel! So where does that leave us? What are to do? Are we now commissioned to balances the scales of freedom and law? Are our lives to be a continuous pendulum swing along the spectrum legalism and license?

Christian, understand our lives are not to be about “balancing” grace, but more fully and clearly understanding it and experiencing it. Your flourishing as a believer in Christ is dependent upon you grasping the true nature of grace—understanding that it’s neither a lowering (legalism) or loosening (license) of God’s law; it doesn’t cheapen God’s holiness into terms and conditions we can control. No, grace is the proper understanding of the flawless harmony in which both God’s law and God’s gospel work to bring about His perfect work in us (Phil. 1:6).

Both the law and the gospel are necessary in order for us to really experience and understand grace. To thoroughly apprehend what Jesus’s gospel does is to recognize the radical, outrageous, unpredictable, uncontrollable, and boundless measure of God’s gracious disposition towards us.

God’s grace isn’t predicated on what you do, thus it’s futile to rely on your performance. It’s also not based on how much you fail, so you won’t be condemned when you do (Rom. 8:1). Grace is given fully and freely to “all who believe” (Rom. 3:22). Those who have a grip on Christ will more acutely feel Christ’s grip on them. The grace of Jesus is outrageously extravagant and our first instinct is to avoid it because it grapples from our frail hands both control and glory.

But it’s grace that keeps our eyes fixed on Jesus, the Author, Perfecter, and Finisher of our faith (Heb. 12:2); it’s grace that announces that we’ve been liberated and have already been accepted, approved, qualified, and justified because of the finished work of Jesus (Col. 1:11-14).

It’s grace that tells us that we’re now free to pursue God, to “follow hard” after Him (Ps. 63:8), and grow deeper in Him because the work of redemption is done, it’s over, “it is finished!” (John 19:30). It’s grace that gives the invitation, “Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth” (Hos. 6:3).

We’re free to approach the throne of God “boldly” and confidently because of grace (Heb. 4:16). We can live the life we’re called to live because there’s no fear in failure, or of judgment, or of condemnation, or of separation (Heb. 4:14-16; Rom. 8:1-3, 35-39; John 5:24).

Jesus lived the perfect life we never could, bore the guilt we always should, and died the death we always would, all for love, all because of grace. The Son of God perfectly fulfilled God’s demands and expectations, meeting the “righteous requirement of the law” (Rom. 8:4), so that we might be called the “children of God” (Rom. 8:16-17; John 1:12-13; 1 John 3:1), the sons and daughters of the King of kings and Lord of lords. “I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty” (2 Cor. 6:18).

This is the good news— this is grace.

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*. This post has been adapted from Pastor Brad’s book Grace: So Much More Than You Know & So Much Better Than You Think. Lulu.com, 2015. Purchase your own copy by visiting his store. The text has been modified from its original version for this post.