Life Around "The Fire"

God’s Power Shows Up When We Surrender

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/1747843/fan_mail/new] Control feels like safety until it starts costing you peace. We sit with one of the most personal challenges in spiritual growth: surrender to God. Not the vague kind that sounds nice on a coffee mug, but the real kind where you hand over your plans, your “rights,” your need to be understood, and your fear of what might happen if you stop managing everything. We explore why surrender feels unnatural in a culture shaped by rugged individualism, and why Scripture points us toward covenant trust instead. Along the way we bring in Ecclesiastes and the ache many of us carry when achievement still feels empty. We talk about the kingdom of God as a lived reality marked by righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit and how that shalom peace pushes back on anxiety, pressure, and lack. Then we go straight at the obstacle that stops most people cold: the fear of prolonged pain. We unpack Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” from 2 Corinthians 12 and the shockingly honest promise that God’s grace is sufficient and that his power is made perfect in weakness. We also share how surrender in suffering can lead to deeper intimacy with Jesus and to a life that can carry real spiritual authority with unity, love, and endurance. If you have been asking God to take something away and nothing is moving, this will give you language, hope, and a next step. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs strength, and leave a review with the biggest takeaway you heard. Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/1747843/support] Loving Yeshua/Jesus, Loving people... Come as you are and you will be loved!  Feel free to check out our website by typing in lifearoundthefire.com or Life Around The Fire ... We think you'll find some beneficial stuff to look at and apply to your life.  Shalom to you and your home.

Why God’s Presence Matters More Than Programs

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/1747843/fan_mail/new] If you have ever done all the “right” Christian things and still felt empty, we are going straight at that tension. We talk openly about how easy it is to slip into dead religion: programs, repetition, and spiritual language without the felt reality of God’s presence. Being a decent person is not the finish line, and going through the motions cannot satisfy the hunger for real faith, real hope, and real love rooted in relationship with God.  We also make a vulnerable announcement. We have been building toward a teaching series on King David, the life of David, and the Tabernacle of David, including the prophetic relevance many people connect to 24/7 worship and the soon return of Jesus Christ. But we are not launching it yet. Why? Because we do not want to deliver something that is merely presented. We want it to be birthed, shaped by prayer, humility, discernment, and the accompanying presence of the Lord, not just a well-made outline.  That is where you come in. We ask for intercession, strategic prayer, and a growing base of prayer support so what we share stays alive, God-centered, and strong enough to carry fruit without toppling. We close by praying for intercessors to be raised up and for God’s kingdom to be expressed with power and clarity. If this resonates, subscribe, share the episode with a friend who feels stuck in routine, and leave a review so more listeners can find these conversations. Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/1747843/support] Loving Yeshua/Jesus, Loving people... Come as you are and you will be loved!  Feel free to check out our website by typing in lifearoundthefire.com or Life Around The Fire ... We think you'll find some beneficial stuff to look at and apply to your life.  Shalom to you and your home.

Guest Speaker Dr Bill Hurst, Part 2: (The Life of King David) What If Mercy Is The Real Revival

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/1747843/fan_mail/new] You can talk about the Tabernacle of David all day and still miss the point if you only mean music. We sit down with Dr. Bill Hurst for part two and treat David’s story as a blueprint for a worship lifestyle that forms something rare: a heart God calls “perfect.” That’s not a personality type or a stage gift. It’s the fruit of years of honest relationship with God.  We walk through why Amos 9:11 and Acts 15 connect the restoration of David’s tabernacle to God drawing in the Gentiles, and why that restoration includes far more than a worship portion. David teaches us to worship through every kind of season: obscurity, monotony, danger, betrayal, leadership pressure, family conflict, and deep disappointment. We also get painfully practical about sacrifice, including Hebrews 13 and the forgotten “sacrifices” of doing good and communication, the kind that can save a home and mature a church.  From there we lean into mercy, repentance, and the “sure mercies of David,” asking what it looks like to become people who carry God’s character and dispense mercy with authority from the throne of grace. We close with a clear-eyed look at prophetic ministry today: revelation is not the hardest part, interpretation and application are, and God is purifying the prophetic so accuracy does not inflate pride and mixture does not dilute truth.  If this helped you, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find Life Around the Fire. What part of David’s pathway feels most real to you right now? Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/1747843/support] Loving Yeshua/Jesus, Loving people... Come as you are and you will be loved!  Feel free to check out our website by typing in lifearoundthefire.com or Life Around The Fire ... We think you'll find some beneficial stuff to look at and apply to your life.  Shalom to you and your home.

Guest Speaker Dr Bill Hurst, Part 1: (The Life of King David) God Looks At The Heart And Trains Us To Carry His Presence

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/1747843/fan_mail/new] We kick off a new series on David with Dr. Bill Hurst, asking why Scripture calls him a man with a perfect heart and what that means for our lives right now. We trace how worship, repentance, and “due order” train us to carry God’s presence personally and as a people.  • defining the tabernacle of David as a lifestyle of relationship with God  • pursuing God’s heart rather than gifts, ministry, or image  • the ark as a picture of the manifest presence of God  • learning from David’s mistake of the right heart but wrong method  • searching Scripture to understand how to steward holy things  • why God may return His presence in an unexpected context  • tabernacle of Moses, tabernacle of David, and Solomon’s temple as transition patterns  • the goal of God dwelling with people and God being all in all  • worship as training to produce the presence with an audience of one  • “due order” and the call for many to carry the presence together  • partial fulfillment versus complete fulfillment in prophecy  If you have any questions, thoughts, concerns, you can feel free to drop us a line at life around the fire at gmail.com. That's life around the fire at gmail.com. Or you can just type in life around the fire and look us up on the web. Stay tuned for part number two.  Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/1747843/support] Loving Yeshua/Jesus, Loving people... Come as you are and you will be loved!  Feel free to check out our website by typing in lifearoundthefire.com or Life Around The Fire ... We think you'll find some beneficial stuff to look at and apply to your life.  Shalom to you and your home.

If the Pursuit of Pleasure and Avoidance of Pain Is Making You Spiritually Numb Something is Out of Order

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/1747843/fan_mail/new] When God feels quiet, most of us assume heaven is closed. We take the silence personally, try to push harder, and end up more frustrated than formed. We go a different direction here: God is clear in His communication, and when something feels off, it’s often because our spiritual senses have grown dull. That doesn’t mean you’re hopeless. It means you can get honest about what’s happening inside and start healing. We unpack a simple image with real bite: spiritual calluses. Like physical calluses formed by repeated friction, the heart can harden through daily compromises, stressful environments that clash with your values, and relationship patterns like the constant need to be right. We also explore the Bible’s language around the “fatty heart,” a picture of spiritual insensitivity that becomes resistant to compassion and truth. One of the most searching angles is how pain avoidance can create an emotional buffer that keeps us from feeling much of anything, including the promptings of the Holy Spirit. The second half turns practical with clear next steps for Christian discipleship and spiritual growth: repent by changing direction, spend quiet time listening and letting God lavish His love, practice forgiveness that releases real debt, and invite trusted people to pray for you so you can move forward with restored spiritual sensitivity. If you want to hear God clearly, sense His presence, and obey without grinding in your own strength, this conversation will give you language and a path. Subscribe for more, share this with a friend who feels stuck, and leave a review with the biggest “callus maker” you’re ready to confront. Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/1747843/support] Loving Yeshua/Jesus, Loving people... Come as you are and you will be loved!  Feel free to check out our website by typing in lifearoundthefire.com or Life Around The Fire ... We think you'll find some beneficial stuff to look at and apply to your life.  Shalom to you and your home.