Christianityworks Official Podcast Podcast Por Berni Dymet arte de portada

Christianityworks Official Podcast

Christianityworks Official Podcast

De: Berni Dymet
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 There is such incredible power in God’s Word! Power to change. Power to make an impact in this world. That’s what Christianityworks is all about – in depth teaching straight out of God’s Word. Join Berni Dymet as he opens God's Word to discover what God has to say into your life, today.Christianityworks Cristianismo Espiritualidad Ministerio y Evangelismo
Episodios
  • Ambassador with a Difference // Living Life as an Ambassador of Christ, Part 4

    Ambassador with a Difference // Living Life as an Ambassador of Christ, Part 4
    Jul 6 2025
    When we have a need – a real need – something we can’t do or fix or resolve for ourselves – what we need, is a helping hand. And if we get that helping hand – the person who’s attached to that hand, well, they go up in our estimation. They earn the right to say things that others can’t to us. Funny thing happens through a helping hand. Healing with our Hands Well, welcome to the programme this week – the last message in a series that I’ve called, “Living Life as an Ambassador for Christ”. And today... today I would like to share with you how you and I can be real ambassadors ... ambassadors with a difference; ambassadors that really stand out from the crowd. Whenever there’s a disaster somewhere in the world – a tsunami or an earthquake or a cyclone or a tornado – it seems to me that the wealthy countries like my own; the countries with the logistics and the equipment and the resources to help – it seems we take forever to mobilise. When people are buried under rubble, they only have days, perhaps only hours to live and what they need right then, is specialist search and rescue teams, with sniffer dogs and listening equipment and all that stuff. And the survivors, what they need, is medical help, food, water, shelter. And the last thing I want to do is be critical but it seems to take so long for the wealthy countries to mobilise their resources. We know that these disasters are going to happen every year – they just happen and I am always left kind of scratching my head as to why it is that it takes us so long to respond. What those poor people need, within the first twenty four hours, is a huge influx of capability to save lives. And these days, I mean, you can pretty much fly from anywhere to anywhere in not much more than twenty fours and yet, time and time and time again these disasters happen and it takes us weeks to mobilise. Does that kind of strike you as strange? You know, as a tax payer in a relatively wealthy country – all be it a smallish population, but never the less, a wealthy country – when I see the way public monies are spent, the last thing that I’d have a problem with is my government setting aside some money to establish and maintain some rapid response capabilities to help other nations when disasters strike. But as easy as it is to sit there and criticise a government, I wonder whether this lethargy in responding to need isn‘t something that you and I experience in our personal lives. I read about an extreme example of this in a newspaper recently. Have a listen to this short article. A South Korean couple addicted to online gaming, let their baby starve to death while raising a virtual daughter. Parents, Kim You-Chul and Choi Mi-sun, spent up to 12 hours a day at an internet café tending to their avatar child in the online game Prius. But they left their real baby home alone and fed her just one bottle of milk a day. Police have charged the couple with child abuse and neglect. Pretty bizarre, pretty extreme, one might think, "Got nothing to do with me; I’m not like that. I don’t neglect my children like that." I would hope not but what about our friends; what about our family members; what about our neighbours; what about the couple next door whose marriage is falling apart? We hear them screaming and arguing but do we ever invite them over for a barbecue, to share in their lives and for them to share in ours? What about that person at church – you know the one – single; overweight; they’re life’s a mess, they talk a bit too much and no one ever invites them to their place on Sunday for lunch? What about that man at work – you see he’s a workaholic; he’s ruining his marriage, neglecting his children – ruining everything, all for want of a friend who can show him a better way of living? Where are we then, you and I? I’ll tell you where: we are like ‘online’ that Korean couple, watching TV! We’re doing all the things we want to do in the comfort of our own lives and our own homes. And the more affluent we become the less we care for one another. But we justify that; we rationalise it away; we sit in our homes with more than enough – many of us – more than enough, telling ourselves, "We worked hard for it and now we need a rest." We are living virtual lives, watching TV shows about cooking, instead of cooking ourselves; watching TV shows about travelling, instead of travelling ourselves. Raising our virtual lives, our virtual gods and ignoring the real world. It sounds harsh doesn’t it? Well, sometimes we need to be direct. Sometimes we need to call a spade a spade. God does that too. Have a listen to this – First John chapter 3, verse 17. If you have a Bible, open it up – towards the end – the First Letter of John chapter 3, verse 17: How does God’s love abide in anyone who has all the world’s goods and yet sees a brother or sister in need but refuses to help? Now, I know that’s hard ...
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    24 m
  • Looking, Walking and Talking Like Jesus // Living Life as an Ambassador of Christ, Part 3

    Looking, Walking and Talking Like Jesus // Living Life as an Ambassador of Christ, Part 3
    Jun 29 2025
    Anyone who believes in Jesus – is also meant to be an Ambassador of Christ. Now – that’s not an easy role. Sometimes being Ambassador requires some tough talk. Other times it’s about diplomacy – the question is, knowing when to call a spade a spade, and when to be more … circumspect. It’s Not a Shouting Match One of the most embarrassing things I’ve ever seen as a Christian – and I’ve seen it a few times – is some guy standing on a soapbox in a Mall or on a street corner, or as I shared a few weeks ago, at a Saturday morning market, screaming out the so called, "Good News" about Jesus Christ. Now, I’m a Christian and so I will sometimes stop and see if I can understand where they’re coming from. And truly, most of the time, I just can’t figure it out, but there they stand on their soapbox, with a Bible in their hands and surrounded by some pretty tacky placards normally, screaming the Gospel at people. Do I think God can use that? Sure – I mean, He seems to use the foolishness that I preach sometimes, in peoples’ lives, so why not the guy on the soapbox on the street corner? Do I think, however, that it’s the most effective way of dealing with the issue? Is it the best way to communicate the incredible love of God, the grace of Jesus Christ, the riches available to those who put their faith in Him? Is it the best way to share that Good News? Not by a long shot; not by a very long shot! And yet, it’s easy ... it’s so easy for us to imagine that telling people about Jesus is kind of like getting on that soapbox. That it’s about two equal and opposite ideologies – God’s and the world’s – butting heads and locking horns. Over the last couple of weeks and again this week on the programme, we are having a chat about living our lives out as ambassadors of Christ; His emissaries, if you will. If I believe in Jesus; if you believe in Jesus, then one of the things that we have to do with our lives – one of the main things - is to communicate His love; to carry His love out into a lost and a hurting world. That’s what the Apostle Paul said in writing to his dear friends at the church in Corinth – way back in the First Century. Second Corinthians chapter 5, verse 20: So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us. Each one in our own way, of course but otherwise, how can we possibly claim to be His ambassadors? How can God make His appeal to this world to be reconciled with Him through someone who looks nothing like Him; who sounds nothing like Him? Now, that presents us with something of a dilemma! Does me, anyhow, because what I see is that sometimes Jesus stood up and berated people – not too often, but sometimes He did. He called the religious leaders of the day "hypocrites", "a brood of vipers" and a whole bunch of other things as well. And yet other times, He dealt with people with such tender love and compassion, it kind of moves you to tears when you read about those times. Like the woman caught in adultery – you can read her story in John’s Gospel chapter 8. I mean He pretty much puts Himself between her and the angry mob that wanted to stone her to death. Go figure that out!! So how do we reconcile that? How do you or I, if we want to be like Jesus, learn to speak into this world the way that He did? When do we speak with tender love and when do we stand up to be counted and call a spade and spade, no matter who it’s going to offend? I guess that’s kind of where we are going this week on the programme – looking at how we speak into this world like Jesus. How do we connect His message of love and forgiveness and a new and abundant life to the needs ... the often desperate needs in the lives of the people around us? Do we call a spade a spade and get right into peoples’ faces or do we speak with compassion and love? And if it’s both of those, how do I know when to use one and when to use the other? Now these questions, as you can imagine, are questions that I have mulled over a lot and as I look at how Jesus communicated, He only got upset ... really upset with people on a handful of occasions. In other words it was the exception rather than the norm. He didn’t see His role as God in the flesh, as being one half of a shouting match most of the time. And so far as I can see, He reserved His anger for the people who should have known better; for the people who said they believed in God – the religious leaders. Have a listen – Matthew chapter 23, beginning at verse 12: All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted. But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and then when others are going in, you stop them. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross the sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as ...
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    24 m
  • Clothed in Christ // Living Life as an Ambassador of Christ, Part 2

    Clothed in Christ // Living Life as an Ambassador of Christ, Part 2
    Jun 22 2025
    Everyone – everyone who believes in Jesus is called to be His ambassador. An Ambassador of Christ. That involves a change of heart, it involves a change in our actions and it involves – well, going. Ambassadors don’t stay, they go. That’s why being Christ’s Ambassadors ain’t easy sometimes. Christ on the Inside Now, one of the things that you and I know is that we are what we eat. If what I do is I pig out on chocolates – man, I love chocolate, but we know that too much of it is bad for us; and fatty foods and sweet, sugary drinks and lots of cakes and sweets, all that stuff – if I pig out on that then who I am on the inside is going to change. I’m going to put on weight, my emotions will take a downswing, because that’s what happens with too much sugar, I’ll become lethargic and tired and I won’t be able to cope. My heart will have to work so much harder to get blood around the larger body and my coronary arteries will get all clogged up, my blood sugar will go up ... and on and on the list goes. The impact is that I have less of a life to live now because I’m always tired, not feeling well and my life expectancy will be cut short. On the other hand, if I get a great mix of healthy cereals and grains and those brightly coloured vegetables and lean meat and all that stuff, which actually tastes pretty fantastic, the complete opposite will happen. What happens on the inside has a huge impact on what happens on the outside. Who we are on the inside – whether it be physically or emotionally or spiritually - has a huge impact on who we are on the outside. And the upshot of all that is that we simply can’t be one thing on the inside and try to be something else on the outside – it just doesn’t work. Last week, again this week on the programme and indeed, over the next couple of weeks we are having a bit of a chat about living our lives here on this earth as ambassadors for Christ, because that is what anyone who believes in Jesus is called to be. We are citizens of heaven, not of this earth and as Paul, the Apostle writes, in Second Corinthians chapter 5, verse 20: We are ambassadors for Christ; since God is making his appeal through us, we entreat you on behalf of Christ, to be reconciled to God. As I said, you just can’t be one thing on the inside and then pretend to be another thing on the outside. You can’t be Swedish on the inside and pretend to be the Indian ambassador on the outside. We can’t be the devil on the inside and pretend to be an angel of light on the outside. Well, I suppose we can for a while but I suspect it’s incredibly hard work, carrying on a deception like that and it doesn’t take long for who we are to make its way to the outside. Jesus Himself said – Matthew chapter 15, verse 19: For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness and slander. So, if we are going to be ambassadors of Christ, then we first have to be citizens of heaven on the inside, just as the Indian ambassador has to be Indian and not Swedish on the inside. Interesting how God talked about this through His prophet Ezekiel, to His people. He talked to them about what was going on in their hearts. Have a listen – Ezekiel chapter 18, verse 31: “Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed against me and get yourselves,” listen to this, “a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, O house of Israel?" A new heart! I think we know what God means but that’s not much of an expression that we would use today. But the expression that we would use is "a change of heart". You and I know what that means: unless something happens deep inside our hearts – on the inside - we can’t change on the outside. But you know there have been issues, transgressions, sins in my life that, try as I might, I couldn’t change my heart by myself. I’m guessing you have had that experience too – we all have! And that’s why God made this promise too, through His prophet Ezekiel, to His people – Ezekiel chapter 36, verse 26: A new heart I will give you, a new spirit I will put within you and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. In fact, perhaps what you want to be is an ambassador of Christ but there’s something right now going on in your heart; something you would love to change but you can’t for yourself that you need God to do for you. So why don’t we pray about that right now: Father God,this Word of yours, You are putting Your finger right on one of the deepest problems in my life. You and I both know what it is and You know that I have struggled to change my heart - I’ve tried my hardest, but I just can’t. And so I come to You in faith and pray for Your will – Ezekiel chapter 36, verse 26 – for a new heart – a change of heart. Take out the heart of stone, O God, and replace it with a heart of flesh. Take out of me any spirit that is causing me to ...
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    24 m
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