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Who Am I? Knowing who you are is fundamental to your life. We all want to discover purpose and meaning and it starts with knowing our identity. On this episode, we explore the second thing people tend to find their identity in, which is in The People's Approval. In today's world of social media, likes, going viral, etc., this source of identity is rampant. Everyone wants to be the one with millions of views and likes from strangers. We look at some of the pitfalls of having approval at the core of your identity and what alternative Jesus offers us as part if the full life He came to give all who would believe.

Who Are you? This is a question you have probably tried to answer at some point in your life. Or perhaps you’re trying to figure it out now. Knowing who we are is fundamental to our existence. It is essential to us as human beings. This quest to find ourselves is common to us all. It cuts across all cultures, ethnicities, languages and people. On this episode, we explore one of the first thing people tend to reach for when trying to define themselves – their abilities. What we can do, especially when it distinguishes us from the masses, is a common source of identity for many people. What impact does this choice have on our life? What alternative does Jesus offer? We explore this and more an this intriguing episode.

Where does riches come from? How do you get rich? There are so many books out there about how to get rich and they point us in all sorts of directions. But We discover and know from the lives of so many before us that no earthly riches gives you what you really need - True Riches. In this episode, Giulia and I continue exploring riches and look at the ultimate source of all true riches. We look at what place money can have in our lives and what a health relationship to money looks like. We see that the way we go about becoming rich is just as important as there are many ways that can end up damaging us and one which leads to life. We explore how we share our riches and make others rich, and much more.

Do you want to be rich? Who doesn’t right? Most people would probably answer - “yes” to that question. So perhaps we need to ask ourselves different questions to explore our thoughts around riches: What will make you rich? Why do you desire those things? What will being rich change in your life? It seems the today's culture pushes us to chase the world’s riches. Hustle until you blow! However, we see from the lives of so many who have attained great material wealth, that it never brings us the lasting satisfaction we desired. In this episode, I have the joy of exploring the true riches we can have in Jesus with my dear friend Giulia. Together we start to look into what place material wealth has in our lives, what the true riches are, how we can become truly rich and much more.

What’s so amazing about Grace? Why do I need Grace? And how do I get Grace? Whether or not any of these questions have crossed your mind, you probably love getting free stuff. Grace isn’t only amazing because it is free, it is also amazing because it gets to work and produces fantastic results in our hearts and minds.   In this episode, we look at a number of the wonderful fruits of grace working in our lives. We see how when we receive God’s grace, it works in our hearts and minds, building us up in amazing ways. It transforms our outlook in life and shifts our perspective. It build resilience, draws out potential and so much more. We also chat about how to get grace and what to avoid when we have it. So many reasons to receive God’s amazing grace.

How do you know you are loved? I mean the real deal, not the “love” that’s here today and gone tomorrow? One way God shows and reminds us that we are loved is by pouring out His grace on us. And all you have to do is receive it. In this episode, we look at just how beautiful grace is. When you put your faith in Jesus, He gives you everything you need to live a full life before you do anything. We see how God’s presence with us can be seen in everyday life and how all grace comes from God. God’s grace doesn’t remove us from the realities of life, but gives us an ease within it. Life with God’s grace is so much better than life without.

Sometimes, a change in circumstances or maybe what seems like a closed door can get us discouraged. And it can be tough to stand up for what is right when if feels like you’re alone. We encounter many different situations in life that can cause our courage to leak or pour out. How do we stay filled up with courage in such times?     In this episode, Kira and I continue our brilliant chat about courage and how we go on receiving it from God in different seasons – be filled with the Holy Spirit. Have God with you everywhere, all the time. We also talk about why it is so important that we take courage to be the examples of courageous people standing up for what God says is right in our communities. One courageous act for good can inspire courage in others.

Have you ever wanted to do something good, maybe even exciting, but you’re too scared to do it? Or maybe you’re struggling with never feeling quite ready to take that step or make that move when deep down you know its time. If like me you’ve known those moments in life when the things that should be really easy somehow become really hard to do, then you’re not alone.   We need courage to overcome the things that hold us back, but where do look to? What is our source of courage, and does it hold strong in the test? On this episode, I have the pleasure of chatting with my friend Kira who shares from her story as we explore courage, where we can get it from and why it’s so essential for each of us in our everyday lives.

Ever feel like sometimes you’re not in the driver’s seat? Like when it comes to certain things, there is a compelling force that always seems to win no matter how what? Sometimes these show up as habits or patterns of behaviour which we would rather not have but are unable to change. They can often latch onto our fears, insecurities or desires and seem to be able to exploit our weaknesses. In this episode, we explore how we can have more self-control in our lives without wearing ourselves out and how to find freedom from controlling thoughts and impulses through Jesus. We see how we get self-control through connection and discuss some of the ways growing in self control helps us live fuller lives in community with each other.

Have you ever stopped to think about what difference light makes to your life. Most often I take it for granted that tomorrow the sun will rise and I’ll have electric power to give me light an night. But can you imagine what the world would be like without light? Thankfully we don’t live in such a world and in fact the season of Christmas is one where we celebrate the arrival of the Light of the world - Jesus Christ. Light is essential for all aspects of our lives and what we see influences many of our decisions. In the light we see things as they are, we see the truth. And knowing the truth is so important because the Truth sets us free from doubt, fear and so many other things that hinder us living life to the full. In this episode, we explore a little bit of what it means to live and walk in the Light, why walking in the light is good for our mental, emotional and spiritual health, what could happen when we hide things in the dark instead and how to get light in our life and keep on walking in the light.

Wouldn’t it be great to wake up every morning full of joy? To study or go to work full of joy? To do all things full of joy? For many people, the reality is we don’t have that joy everyday. And for others, it may be even further from that. Maybe you’re going through a tough chapter at the moment and it is hard to find things that give you joy. How do we navigate these dry spells? Jesus tells us that it is possible for our joy to be full. How do we have more joy? How do we have full joy? On this episode, I had so much fun diving into this core component of life lived to the full with two dear friends of mine - Olly & Rebekah. And they share with us a little bit about their stories and the wisdom they’ve picked up along the way.

It may appear as special permission to do a particular thing or in some other form. I wonder what comes to mind when you think about authority. It probably draws up different feelings and memories in each of us depending on who you are, how you’ve lived, what you do and so many other things. Regardless of how we feel about it, authority is a permanent feature of our daily lives. The question which follows is this – Is there a way we can enjoy rather than at best tolerate its presence? In this episode, we begin to explore what authority means and how it features in some different contexts. We also look at some of the responses we could have to it and most importantly, how we can use it well. Join me as we discover more about how much the authority we have, and could have, can enrich our lives and our communities.

“Don’t get your hopes up”. That’s a phrase some of us might be familiar with. We use it often, not because we don’t like having hope, but because we don’t like being disappointed or let down. However, we shouldn’t let our desire to shield ourselves from disappointment keep us from the great experience of having hope in the waiting and seeing what we have hoped for come to be. In this episode, we look at hope from all the angles and explore the effects it can have on our everyday lives. We look at why hope is so essential to living a full life, how to tip the scales more towards the positive experiences, hope in community and so much more.

We are all familiar with starting new things. It is pretty natural as children when we learned to hold things, walk and talk. Later in life however, it may become something that we don’t take to quite as naturally anymore and could keep us from receiving opportunities that are presented to us. For some, starting a new chapter might seem a daunting task and for others it may be difficult to leave the current comfort zone. In this episode, we carry on the conversation with my bro Carl who also kindly helped compose the new jingle for the podcast. He is a great friend, and he shares how he gets moving from his comfort zone, how the problems of the past have been transformed and much more.

We all have things that are part of our lives that we consider essential, and I’m sure we are all familiar with these things to varying degrees. Maybe they are things that we would find difficult to give up or things that we are endlessly chasing. Is holding unto them good for us? And more importantly, are all these things necessary for us to live full lives? Sometimes we might find that we struggle with letting go of things we want to stop, and that can prevent us from having the capacity to pick up something new. In this episode, I have the pleasure of talking about how we navigate this part of life well with my great friend Carl. Carl shares part of his story and shares the lessons he learned along the way.