Note: I talked about the Wheelbarrow Analogy in my above video. In looking deeper at this analogy, it may not be the best example of having Faith in God because there are many things that COULD go wrong in the wheelbarrow analogy-there are still risks to the wheelbarrow guy making it across-he’s a man who can’t control all the variables. A man’s ability can never perfectly compare with God’s ability to get us ‘across’. A man will eventually fail. God will never fail. I used it because it shows someone who believes in the Lord, believes what He says we need to do in order to ‘be saved’ and therefore trusts Him when reading what the Bible says about how to be saved- He gives over control of his life to God. When we get into a place where we trust GOD with our lives, believing what He said to be true is true, we are in the safest place we can possibly be. There is no room for shame and we don’t need to doubt Him once we give our lives to Him, knowing He is who He says He is and He will do what He said He will. It doesn’t depend on us working hard to earn His favour. It’s all about us believing Him-that He accomplished the work that needed to be done. Faith in God, as explained in Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the EVIDENCE of things not seen” Faith is the OPPOSITE of DOUBT. I liked this explanation of faith and the explanation of the problem with the wheelbarrow analogy below. Please note, that I don’t ‘follow’ this guy and I don’t know too much about him, but I watched this episode and agree and find it very helpful. I especially love how he digs into the Greek and Hebrew meanings of the words used. Basically, go to the Bible for your answers! Read verses in context. Look up the Greek and Hebrew meanings of words-I use https://www.blueletterbible.org/(Blue Letter Bible) to look up verses and find out the original meanings of the words. Dig in! Find out the original meanings! You’ll be blessed & encouraged when you do-because the meanings of words do change!
This one by Francis Chan is longer, and he starts with a really stern warning about the Character of God. He ends with the amazing truth about God’s love for us and how we can get into a right relationship with God-according to what the Bible teaches, not what is popular today!
The Alpha Series is very helpful, and the entire series is online! I am helping to run a small Alpha Group right now, and I love the basics of it:
There are many more in this series. I’ll add them as I go through and watch them. They are easily found on Youtube. I really appreciate so much about the Alpha course, but I have heard about their beliefs on the Holy Spirit-or the beliefs of their church on the Holy Spirit, and I don’t necessarily agree with all of this church’s teaching on the Holy Spirit. As always, this is an excellent series. But we must be reading the Bible and in Prayer ourselves, seeking to know what the truth is. Don’t depend on other people’s work to teach you about God. That’s why I colour in my Bible-so I can look up all the purples: all the things it says about God that I coloured in. All the blues-everything I found that told how I can be saved from my sin.
Use people’s videos-mine very much included-as a jumping off point. I trust the Bible. I measure EVERYTHING with what it says, IN CONTEXT and often by digging in to the original meanings of the words using the Blue Letter Bible site. I like the parts in Alpha that explain why we can trust the Bible today. But not every translation!
Janis's Stories about God & Life 