Zoe Code Podcast With Mike Q. Daniel

Mike Daniel concludes his discussion of the difference between being a Carnal Christian versus a Spiritual Carnivore, including the points that when you pursue God for Himself, your life will be radically different from what it was when you pursued Him for what you wanted from Him; God is enough and His grace is sufficient so you don’t have to live for yourself but can be available for Him; and all your struggles become useful when your goal is to know God more because those are the very venues He allows in your life to develop dependence on, and intimacy with, Himself. 

Mike Daniel continues his discussion of the difference between being a Carnal Christian versus a Spiritual Carnivore, including the points that we’re seeking the things of the world—living carnal lives—because we value more what we can get from God than we value God Himself; we seek after the gifts instead of the Giver not realizing when we have Him, we have everything we need; and when we seek to be in a deeper more intimate union with God, we find that He has already overcome the sin in our lives.

Mike Daniel discusses the difference between being a Carnal Christian who is seeking God for the things of this world and what he can get from God versus a Spiritual Carnivore who is someone living for God, feeding on Him and building a relationship with Him.  

Mike Daniel discusses King Jehoshaphat’s seeking God in the midst of an overwhelming crisis and how that applies to us, including the points that God uses storms in your life to draw you into deeper fellowship and dependence on Him; He wants you to know that He is the source of peace, joy and rest, not your circumstances; and like Jesus asleep in the boat in the middle of that storm, if we knew how great God is, we, too, would be able to sleep in the storm.

Mike Daniel discusses Jesus’ prayer for all His children in John 17:9-26, including the points that Jesus is in heaven interceding for you; you don’t need to perform or try to persuade him to be on your side since everything He is doing is for you; your failure is just as useful as your success in the Christian life because it is through your failure you learn how much grace there is for you; and the nearness of God is the solution to all your problems.

Mike Daniel discusses trichotomy which means we are a 3-part person: body, soul and spirit, including that when you believe lies from your flesh, the world or the enemy, and your emotions go along with the lies, you can fall into the error of thinking you have to work harder and do more for God to get what you want from Him, and when you fail, you end up justifying, coping or blaming others. God, however, can work in the midst of your sin and rebellion to change your source from yourself to Him. The battle of the mind is to take every thought captive to the knowledge of His finished work and then to rest in Him and His finished work.

Mike Daniel continues his discussion of going deeper with Christ, including the points that God is trying to get you to the deeper life that you already have in Christ but aren’t experiencing because you’re pursuing other things; that you can admit to Him that your plans are just your wants and give them to Him, then choose what He wants for you, and ask him not to do what you want, but to do what He wants; and you can admit to God that you want more than just Him and then ask Him to change your heart because God is in the heart changing business. 

Mike Daniel discusses Jeremiah 29:11 including the points that while God knows the plans He has for you, He doesn’t tell you what His plans for you are because the last thing God wants you to do is to go and try to accomplish the plans that He wants to accomplish in and through you; Christianity is your being so radically sold out and dependent on Christ as your life that you completely abdicate control and decision making for the rest of your life to Him; and God is calling you to pursue Him not His plan so He can do whatever He wants with you.

Mike Daniel discusses 2 Peter 2:4-5, including how we, as aliens in the world, are not supposed to be living like the world because we are equipped to live differently and the reason we’re not living differently is because we still want what the world wants; and how we are to strive to focus on Him in our circumstances to come to know Him more in order to receive what He has for us in that moment and experience the fulfillment that brings.

Mike Daniel and Darrell Lindsey discuss whether a believer can be cut off from God if he stops believing, in the context of Rom. 11:22 and 2 Pet. 2:20, concluding that in Romans 11:2, this verse applies to a people-group and not to an individual and in 2 Pet. 2:20, a believer who stops believing, while suffering by choosing sin, cannot lose his salvation.

Mike Daniel discusses 1 John 1:9--on confessing sins for God’s forgiveness and cleansing from all unrighteousness—in the context of verses 5 – 9, as applying only to those who have never recognized and confessed their sins and asked Christ for forgiveness and who therefore remain unbelievers living in darkness. Believers, who have been cleansed of all sins at salvation, don’t need to continue to confess and be forgiven for sins anew every single day to be right with God.

Mike Daniel discusses the implications of Jesus’s baptism and the Father’s statement, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” to you today as a believer in Christ, including how your relationship with the Father is identical to His very good relationship with Christ because you are in Him; and how God is saying, “You are my child with whom I am well pleased,” not because you deserve it but because Christ deserved, earned, purchased and gave it to you and thus made you the recipient of the pleasure of God. God is in you and he wants to express the uniqueness of who He is through you, His beloved child.

Mike Daniel discusses Mark 6: 7-12 including how you’re not saved to be safe but to be sent; true life is not found in hearing and agreeing with the truth but in walking in it and sharing it with others; how you’re brought into the Kingdom to be sent out; and how your conspicuous dependence on Christ (that’s faith) as your Source will display God’s graciousness and result in glory to Him.

Mike Daniel discusses the true meaning of being loved and loving others from a Christ as Life grid, including how you gain nothing, have nothing, and are nothing apart from His love; how God is convincing you of how loved you are; how as you increasingly receive his love, you become more useful to His plan and agenda to love others and convince them of His love; and how your being convinced of how loved you are by God becomes the motivation and empowerment (the cause) of your behavior.

Mike Daniel continues his discussion of unraveling faith “nots” using the story from Matthew of Jesus’s commending the Canaanite woman for her great faith and making the point that knowing His grace and knowing your place equals great faith, and discussing the question, “Do I trust God enough to accomplish what He wants through me and do I trust His character enough to be OK with whatever that is?”

Mike Daniel continues his discussion of unraveling faith “nots” using examples from Matthew of Jesus’s rebuking his disciples for having too little faith, including the points that God is never really worried about what you’re lacking; God is never limited by your limitations; He is able to guard what He has entrusted to you; and nothing will be impossible when you have dependent faith on Jesus and He is the One working in and through you.

Mike Daniel, using the story of Peter’s walking to Jesus on the water, discusses authentic faith including how faith is your hope in the person of Jesus Christ not in His activity or His provision; how the goal of the Christian life isn’t your happiness but God’s glory; how the way you glorify him is by submitting and entrusting yourself to Him which is worship; and how the only way you will submit to Him is because of His great love revealed in Christ.

Mike Daniel continues his discussion of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead to illustrate that God is drawing your attention to an eternal reality in your temporal circumstances, including the points that God is always moving you from crisis-focus to Christ-focus; that He enters into your grief and suffering with you because he wants to be intimate with you; and that life in Him overcomes death once and for all.

Mike Daniel discusses the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead to illustrate that God is drawing our attention to an eternal reality in our temporal circumstances, including that God will bring something greater from our circumstances than what we have to go through to get to it; because of God’s sovereignty, every struggle is not the end of the story, God’s glory is; and because of his love, he will suffer great loss with us to share great glory with us.

Mike Daniel discusses what it looks like to be spiritually mature, in the context of Psalm 115:1 and Gal. 2:21, and addresses the questions:  Who has God revealed Himself to be to you?; Who do you need him to be to you?; and Who can you afford for Him to be through you to others?