Claim OwnershipThe Word for Everyday Disciples with Dave DeSelm
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© 2025 The Word for Everyday Disciples with Dave DeSelm
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A weekly podcast bringing biblical teaching to everyday people in ways they can understand and put into practice. Visit us at DaveDeSelmMinistries.org.
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In our last episode, we talked about the mystery of unanswered prayer. There are times when God, in His sovereignty and love, chooses to say “No” to our requests. However, the Bible also tells us that our Father loves to say “Yes” to His children. So, why is it that so often we pray and pray, and nothing seems to happen? Where’s the problem? All too often, the problem is with us. We’re the ones who torpedo the process. In this episode, we’re going to look at eight “prayer busters” the B...
Have you ever begged God for something that mattered more than anything — and He didn’t come through the way you hoped? That very thing happened to the great King David. After years of conquest, Israel was now unified and at peace. But, Israel was still worshiping Yahweh at a tent—the Tabernacle that had made the trek through the wilderness with God’s people. Nestled in his cedar-lined palace, David—the man after God’s own heart—began to dream. “The Lord has been so good to me, an...
When we look at the life of Jesus, we see that prayer wasn’t a responsibility to be pushed into for Him; it was a relationship to be pulled into. It was in prayer where He found rest, strength, and direction, and where He experienced the Father’s love most deeply. In Matthew 6:5-8, Jesus offers some straightforward advice on how to pray like He did. 1. Pray systematically – carve out time. Deep, satisfying relationships are a function of time spent together. The same ...
It has often been said that prayer is the greatest force in the universe. And yet, it remains a largely untapped resource for so many Christians. Why is that? There are a lot of reasons why we don’t pray, but I think they can be summarized under two headings: We don’t know how it works. It feels very unnatural to talk to someone I can’t actually see and whose voice I’ve never literally heard. We don’t think it really matters. We take a fatalistic view. “If it’s supposed to h...
As we come to the end of our journey through the book of Joshua, our hero is now elderly—over 100 years old. He realizes his time of leading his people will soon be over. So, he calls the people together and gives a remarkable farewell speech. He begins by reminding them of the covenant God had made with their ancestors. He invited each of them to enter into that covenant, to choose to be loyal to God above all else. Abraham said, “I’m in.” Isaac and Jacob each in turn said, “I’m in.” H...
They were ready to fight. They thought they knew the truth. They were wrong. Joshua 22 shows how fast things can go wrong when we rush to judgment. As the Israelites were making their way northward toward Canaan, some of the tribes found the land east of the Jordan to be quite attractive. They asked to settle there, and permission was granted for the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half of the tribe of Manasseh to stake their claims. The only stipulation was that the troops from those tribes...
After twelve chapters of action, miracles, and conquest, our journey through the book of Joshua enters a long stretch of mind-numbingly boring descriptions of towns and boundaries. What in the world could the division of the land into tribal territories have to do with us today? In trying to answer that, I began to ask myself some questions: Why did God assign certain people to live in certain places? Was it simply to demonstrate His authority? Or could it be that He had bigger, Kingdom reaso...
When the going gets tough—and the battles don’t end as quickly as we hoped—it’s easy to grow weary and discouraged. That’s where Israel found themselves in Joshua 11. Victory didn’t come in a single day or even a single campaign. It took years of relentless struggle. After conquering the land in central and southern Canaan, Joshua turned his focus to the north. There, he was confronted by a huge coalition army. Not only was Joshua outnumbered 7-to-1, but for the first time in battle, he faced...
Today, we’re going to be considering one of the most remarkable occurrences in all the Bible. It happened on a day when an ordinary man asked an extraordinary God for a miracle of the highest order. He asked for the sun to stand still. And it did! In Joshua 10, Joshua and his troops marched all night to come to the aid of their allies, the Gibeonites. A coalition of five kings had marched against Gibeon, seeking to take control of this strategic location before Joshua could occupy it. B...
If there’s one lesson to learn from today’s message, it’s this: As freely as God’s blessing is given to those who obey, it can be removed from those who disobey. After Israel’s miraculous victory at Jericho, the next strategic target for Joshua’s conquest of the land was the city of Ai. Its small size should have made it an easy win. Instead, Israel was defeated, leaving Joshua and his people angry, ashamed, and confused. Before we move on with this story, a little flashback is necessar...
The story about how the walls of Jericho came “a-tumblin’ down” is a favorite. But it’s also the target of a great deal of skepticism. Today, we’re going to look briefly at three of the most frequently asked questions related to the battle of Jericho, and then we’ll seek to apply the events of that day to our day. 1. Is Jericho a real historical site? Yes! In fact, Jericho is known as the oldest continually inhabited city on earth. Archeologists have uncovered artifacts that indicate a...
You would think that after miraculously parting the torrent of the flooded Jordan River, bringing fear to their enemies, God would have said to Joshua, “Now, go! Strike hard and fast while you have the momentum!” But He didn’t. God brought everything to a screeching halt when He gave Joshua this command: Circumcise all the men and boys. This seemed to make no sense. Not only did it go against military logic, but it also left their fighting forces physically vulnerable for days as they recover...
She wasn’t anyone’s first pick for a hero, but God had other ideas. She showed a courageous faith that changed her life—and history—forever. Her name was Rahab, a disreputable woman from the pagan Canaanite city of Jericho. The word the Bible uses to describe her is zonah: prostitute, harlot. There’s no way to sanitize it. Yet Rahab had come to a point of faith in Israel’s God, Yahweh. She had heard the stories of the miraculous ways God had given victory to His people, so when she heard that...
As we open the book of Joshua, our hero is standing at the edge of the Promised Land, the destiny they have been hoping for. He is entering the third “leg” of his journey of faith. For the first 40 years of Joshua’s life, he was a slave. Born into bondage, as his fellow Hebrews had been for 400 years. He knew no other life. Then came the glorious day when God sent the great deliverer, Moses. Joshua experienced Passover and the parting of the Red Sea. He saw firsthand that the Lord was a...
We’ve been talking about how to build a big connection to Jesus because the stronger the connection, the better the fruit, and the greater the joy. In this message, I want to look at a practice we don’t often think about in terms of spiritual rhythms, and that’s the practice of celebration—marking moments with joy and gratitude. God understood the power of joyful celebration. God dotted the calendar of His people with it. Regularly, He told His people to stop their work, to gather toget...
In this series, we’ve been exploring ways to build a strong connection with Jesus. In John 15, He calls it “abiding” in Him. What we’ve discovered is that the stronger the connection, the better the fruit and the greater the joy. We’ve talked about the importance of rest and nutrition in producing good fruit in our lives. Today, we are looking at the necessity of breathing, and the way we do that is through prayer. What word comes to mind when you think of prayer? For some, it’s joy! Pr...
In John 15, Jesus tells us that if we hope to have lives of fruitfulness and joy, we must abide in Him. We must remain intimately connected with Him at the soul level. The stronger the connection, the better the fruit and the greater the joy. In this series, we’re exploring ways to build a strong connection with Jesus. The analogy of a grapevine helps us identify some of those practices. Today, we are considering the importance of nutrition. Just as a grapevine needs good soil fro...
In John 15, Jesus uses the analogy of a vineyard to describe the life of a disciple. Jesus is the vine, and we are the branches. Like branches grafted into a grapevine, so it is with our relationship with Christ: the stronger the connection, the more the fruit, and the greater the joy. Put another way: Fruitfulness is the result of abiding, and that leads to joy. To abide is to remain intimately connected to Jesus at the soul level. The stronger that connection, the greater ...
With the powerful hold idols have over us, is there any hope that we might dethrone these counterfeit gods? The answer is, “Yes!” …IF we take to heart this foundational truth. Idols cannot simply be removed – they have to be replaced. How do we do that? If we hope to deal with our idols, what we need is not merely a vague belief in God but a profound encounter with God. Jacob had such an encounter, and it changed him forever. We met Jacob and his wives, Leah and Rache...
You’ve probably heard the saying “Money talks.” What would money say to you if it wanted to be your idol? And what might God say in contrast? 1. Money says: “Look at how much more others have than you.” This counterfeit god uses envy to enslave us, driving us to want more. Proverbs 14:30 says, “A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones.” God says: “Be content with and grateful for what you have.” The antidote to envy is gratitude. 2.&nb...
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