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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.
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FRESH is a Daily Devotional taking you deeper into God's Word + closer to Jesus. Each devotion will have a powerful Scripture verse, together with some words of inspiration, hope and encouragement. It’s all about helping you hear from God so that you can live in a rich, dynamic, powerful relationship with Jesus. God’s Word. Fresh, for you, each day.
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God has a habit of wanting to speak right into the circumstances that we’re travelling through here and now; the very issues that we each face in our everyday lives. Everything from dealing with difficult people … to discovering how God speaks to us; from overcoming stress … to discovering your God-given gifts and walking in the calling that God has placed on your life And that’s what these daily 10 minute A Different Perspective messages are all about.
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Most times when we run into difficult issues in our lives, we try to overcome them in our own strength – or perhaps with the help of a friend. But what do we do when we run into difficulties, obstacles, problems that are way beyond human strength? Then what? It’s great to be with you again today, almost the end of the week; getting there, not quite…
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Have you ever noticed how, when life’s toddling along well, you seem to have plenty of people around you. But when all of a sudden things take a turn for the worse, how so many of them just disappear? I guess we shouldn’t be surprised. After all, when the pressure’s on, it’s only natural for people to want to retreat into comfort and safety. Very f…
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When you’re trying to live your life well … with goodness, with integrity … and yet everyone around you is behaving badly, you begin to wonder, “Is it worth it?” Well, is it? Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor and theologian best known for his staunch resistance to Hitler’s dictatorship and the abject evil – the genocide – that it was perpetra…
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Ask someone whether they’d like to live an extraordinary life, and most people will say “of course I would”. But then all of a sudden, when they realise that that’s going to involve sacrifices, the vast majority back off. There seems to be a big difference between the theory and the practice. When I finished High School, almost 40 years ago now, my…
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Pretty much everyone’s heard of the Golden Rule – you know, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Yeah, okay. That’s nice. But what does it really mean, and what impact can it really have on the sort of life we end up living? I’m really excited to be with you again today, because this week again on the program we’re talking about How t…
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The world’s powerbrokers – national leaders, billionaires, celebrities, social media ‘influencers’ – all have a couple of things in common. For the moment, they carry a lot of sway but one day they’ll be gone. Have you ever thought about what shapes the way you think? What are the things that create the lens through which you perceive and react bot…
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It’s all too easy in life to get stuck in a rut. In what we say, in what we do … and actually also in what we think. And when someone challenges those things – often times we defend our actions, our words and our thoughts. But the sort of life we live, depends a lot on our ability to see things from a different perspective. Hey, it’s easy to find o…
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The self-help sections of newspapers, or newsfeeds if you’ve gone digital, are bulging these days with worldly wisdom that ranges from the seductive through to the bizarre through to the positively dangerous. Whether it’s mysticism and mindfulness, or the plethora of contradictory and mutually exclusive dietary advice, or how one woman’s side hustl…
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If you look around the world, there are more than a few despots ruling over nations, dictating how people should live and what they should believe. It’s not nice. But that despotism can be much closer to home than you might imagine. Even if, like me, you happen to live in relative freedom, you’re more and more being told what you should be thinking…
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Have you ever wondered – how to live an extraordinary life? I mean no one wants to live a boring ordinary life. We all want to have some impact in this world. But … how? The Theory is not Enough When I finished high school almost 40 years ago now, my grades were good enough to mean I was selected to study medicine at Sydney University. And so I app…
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Do you know how sometimes you meet someone and they seem to have their act completely together – the perfect job, plenty of money and a family that you can only dream of? I was chatting with a man recently whom I’ve known, I’m guessing, for around twenty years. Rather a long time. He’s a senior judge in what’s called the “family court”. He hears ca…
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There can scarcely be anything more frightening than an earthquake. With the ground shaking beneath your feet, you’re just waiting for the building to collapse around you and crush you beneath its rubble. According to livescience.com, the strongest earthquake ever recorded occurred on May 22nd, 1960 in Valdivia, Chile. It registered a magnitude of …
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Sometimes, looking at some parts of the church today, large parts in fact, you could swear that Jesus’ great commission to His disciples was “build something and they’ll come”. Well, it wasn’t. The key verb, the key doing word in the great commission is “go”. Go is such an extraordinary word. We are such masters of self-delusion, you and I. Come on…
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Sometimes it seems that life is just a series of power plays – it’s all about who has power over whom. But there’s a different sort of power. The power of God. There’s nothing at all that compares to God’s power. And that extraordinary power is available to anyone who trusts in Jesus. I wonder what the word "Power" means to you. Power is what flows…
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Whatever language you happen to speak at home, new words and phrases are being added to your dictionary much more frequently than you might expect. But that’s by no means a new thing. According to a recent press article, William Shakespeare is credited with inventing more than 1,700 words, including “bedroom,” “courtship,” and “swagger.” Charles Di…
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We’ve all had that experience when someone not only does something for you (as though that weren’t enough) but does it with a good intention, with a pure heart. Isn’t that just the most amazing feeling? And no doubt you’ve had the complete opposite too, when someone does something for you, but begrudgingly. You may hear it in their words, or sense …
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Not all of us are wired in such a way so that compassion is our first thing. It’s not that we don’t care, it’s just that compassion takes time. And in this day and age, having compassion … well, we just don’t have the time. Jesus … Jesus was a man of extraordinary compassion. Hey, I have a confession to make. I’m not naturally a compassionate perso…
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Most of us have heard that expression about being a dog with two masters. Turns out that dogs are simple, loyal creatures. Two masters is hard work. Two masters is confusing. So they always, always settle on just one master. The trick is … choosing the right one. When I was a young lad I had a dog called Banner. He wasn’t any particular breed. I th…
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The world seems, by and large, to be fixated on wealth, wouldn’t you agree? Money, money, money. How can I make more of it? How can I have even just a bit more to afford some of the luxuries I’d love to have. The press seems regularly to want to report on who the richest person in the world is. Is it Elon Musk of Tesla, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Larry …
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Have you been asked for advice and, as you were sharing your thoughts, wondered why this person came to you in the first place? They don’t seem to want to know. They’re not even listening. One of my sons, now in his forties, came to me recently for some advice on a difficult issue that he was dealing with. First up, as a dad I felt incredibly privi…
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Most people are concerned about what other people think about them. Some people are way too concerned what others think of them. And it turns out that when it comes to living an extraordinary life, the last thing Jesus was concerned about was what other people thought about Him. They say first impressions count. Of course they do and so many people…
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It’s really quite striking, when you stop and think about it, how much the negativity and challenges of the past, coupled with the pressures that we face today, tend to distort our sense of judgement … leading us to make decisions that all too often turn out for worse rather than better. And then, when we’re facing those consequences, we often don’…
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Jesus didn’t do things by half measures. His compassion wasn’t ordinary, everyday compassion. It was radical compassion. His power wasn’t religious power. It was God’s awesome power. Radical Compassion I have a confession to make. I’m not naturally a compassionate person. How about you? Now that doesn’t mean that I don’t care about people deeply. I…
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We’ve been chatting this week about achieving greatness – true greatness; not the sort of sham that our celebrity culture holds out, but the sort that impacts the lives of others for eternity. Might I ask you today, is yours a life that, by the end of it, will have impacted the lives of others for eternity? Because if you’re someone who believes in…
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The easiest thing in the world is just to go with the flow. Conventional thinking about things – truth, morality – has changed enormously over the centuries. And not always, as people would have you believe – for the better. What we really need – is some true wisdom. Wisdom that works. One of the things I love to do in my reading is to look histori…
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Salt is something that most of us use daily to add flavour to otherwise boring food, or to enhance even further the flavour of the most delicious of foods. And yet, important though it is, it’s something we rarely think about. At some point back in antiquity, salt was likely more valuable than gold. These days, it’s a cheap commodity. But if someon…
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Every now and then we run into a difficult issue in a relationship. Sometimes the right thing to do is bite our lip. Other times we let it wash by and we forgive and we move on. But sometimes, sometimes we have to address issues – tackle them head on. How … how do you do that? Now I don't know about you but over these last few weeks I've really enj…
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It never ceases to amaze me how tribalistic we’ve become without even being aware of it. It happens in sport – okay, fine. It happens in politics – something I guess you’d expect. But it happens in far more subtle, more insidiously divisive ways too – in ways we tend to ignore. Like it or not, society does tend to stratify itself by socioeconomic s…
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Serving others is something that, on the one hand, we know we need to do. But on the other, we often find it inconvenient, undesirable … even downright demeaning. When you think about it, doing things for others is what makes the world go round. It’s how we can live in houses we’d never have been able to build for ourselves, to drive vehicles we’d …
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Have you ever had that experience of being the “odd man out” if I can use that old phrase. Everybody seems to be in agreement about something … and you’re looking at this thing and what you really want to say us “Ahh, excuse me but I think – I think the Emperor’s Got No Clothes”? So what do you do? We're continuing our chat again today about what i…
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There are three types of people. People who control you. People who drain you. And people who empower you. We all know which one out of those three we’d rather hang out with, right? And if we’re going to live an extraordinary life … we all know which one out of those three we’d rather be, right? Now no prizes for guessing which type of person I'd r…
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A lot of the bickering that goes on in this world is about who’s the greatest; who’s first; who’s going to be seen to be the most impressive, the leader of the pack. It starts early on, right back in childhood. If you have siblings, doubtless you’ll remember how you used to bicker amongst yourselves. My sister and I certainly did – and sure, you ex…
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Pretty much all of us want to live not just a dull, boring life, but an extraordinary life. The sort of life that – given who we are and where we live and what we’re capable of – makes a positive difference in this world. A life that counts for something. And one of the most extraordinary things we can do is to pour out our gifts and abilities for …
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The desire to be thought well of is a secret that many harbour in their hearts. Oft times it spills over into our words, our behaviour … and at that point … well, let’s just say it ain’t pretty. Is there anything wrong with striving to be your best, with winning at something? Not per se. It’s good for us to achieve. But when we want to win in order…
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There’s an old proverb – never put things off until tomorrow, that you can do today. Jesus was a master at that. In just three and a half years, He turned the world completely upside down. A Team Player Other people can be such a pain in the neck, have you noticed that? I don’t mean you I mean other people. It’s always those other people isn‘t it? …
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It’s all too easy to fool ourselves into thinking that we’re rather more important in this world than we actually are; that our services are in high demand; that “busy, busy, busy” is just how life’s meant to be lived. Of course, we go through stages when there’s no getting around the fact that the time we have available isn’t enough to do all that…
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Evil is something that we see all around us, if only we’ll look. Often though, we don’t look because it’s just all too much. So we just get on with life. But there’s one place where we don’t expect to find it, where we don’t even dare to look. Evil is such a strong word that we rarely, if ever, apply it to ourselves. But how often are we the ones w…
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I don’t know how many church services you’ve sat through in your life but I’ve lost count. It all began for me as a young child. Sitting still for an hour was excruciating. The guy droning on up front bored me witless. Okay, so I was a child and a lot of that was probably down to my immaturity. But these days, with hi-tech at our fingertips, with a…
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Living an extraordinary life is about … well, it’s about having a positive impact in this world, in other people’s lives. It’s challenging, but satisfying. So why do some people live extraordinary lives, and others … ordinary lives? Sometimes, it’s about focus; it’s about what we set out to do. What are we talking about on the program today? The sa…
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Setting out on a new venture is always dicey. You take that first step somewhat tentatively. You want it to be a good start. You don’t want to upset people on day one. Back in my IT consulting days when I’d begin a project with a new client, those first few days were always difficult. What’s the lay of the land? Who are the power brokers whose toes…
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Other people can be such a pain in the neck sometimes. Well, it’s true, isn’t it? They can. So the temptation is to go it alone, do things ourselves. Pride sets in – you know what I’m talking about. And yet it’s that very attitude that nobbles people – that stops them from living an extraordinary life. Hey, other people can be such a pain in the ne…
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Whenever things press in on us – be they physical, emotional or spiritual – have you noticed this; temptation seems to come at you at a far greater rate of knots? It’s almost as though someone knows you’re struggling so they take the opportunity kick you while you’re down. Temptation is something of a sensitive subject. We don’t like to talk about …
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By and large most of us don’t have a problem with authority … most of the time. Until we disagree with the person who’s in authority over us. Then it’s a problem. And yet learning to submit to authority is – surprisingly – one of the first steps to living an extraordinary life. One of the greatest joys in my life is being able to work with people o…
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Question – are you living an extraordinary life? A life that really counts for something … or not? And if not, why not? Well one of the reasons is that sometimes, the things of the past are ruining your present and robbing you of your future. It’s time to change that. Now there are plenty of people in this world who want to blame the past for where…
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Have you ever wondered what baptism is all about? It’s an odd little ritual that’s been practised for millennia – first in Judaism and then in Christianity. Even Jesus was baptised. So let’s dive in. Yesterday we met John the Baptist, who came to prepare the way for Jesus by calling people to be baptised to show that they wanted to change their liv…
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In my experience – perhaps in yours, too – God does some rather … well, odd things; things that we don’t expect; things that leave us wondering … why? Take for instance John the Baptist whom God sent out before Jesus to, as the Bible says, prepare the way for the Lord. Okay, fair enough. Perhaps the way needed preparing. But he was on odd fellow in…
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Let’s face it, we all model our lives on something … or on someone. We just do. The sad thing is when we pick the wrong role model, it can take us in a terribly wrong direction. So where do we find the sort of role model that will lead us to live … and extraordinary life? Hey, beginning of a great new week, love it, love it, love it and welcome to …
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So what keeps you going through the incessant daily grind of life; through the tough patches that come your way on such a regular basis? What are you looking forward to? What’s your hope for the future? As interminably long as the days may feel sometimes, in reality we’re nothing more than interlopers on this earth. As we plug away at life, as each…
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Life is no dress rehearsal. You blink, and it’s gone. So … it makes sense to live an extraordinary life. Okay … but how? Where do you start? How do you turn things around? Why We Need A Mentor We’re going to kick off something really exciting today on the program. Over the coming few weeks we’re going to be looking at how to live an absolutely extr…
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There’s a tectonic shift going on in people’s mindsets – one that’s been evident for quite some time. It’s the global shift from a collective, mutually responsible world view to an individualistic one. In the west, economies have become more developed over the last century – people’s disposable incomes have risen, the supercomputers in the palms of…
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