Tara Lee Davis's Podcast

We conclude our series on Hope from Romans 15:13 which looks at the power of the Holy Spirit. We don't have to strive for hope, we can trust that God will keep His Word and empower us to walk in hope all the days of our lives, even when things don't make sense.

According to Romans 15:13, we are to live lives that are overflowing with hope. But what does that look in the everyday details, especially when we feel like we are drowning under the weight of the world?

Romans 15:13 makes it clear that while hope comes from God, joy and peace come first. But how many of us experience joy and peace on a daily basis? Joy and peace is ours to enjoy, even in rough times. So either God is a liar or we aren't doing our part. And what exactly is our part? To believe in God, or as another translation puts it to trust in Him. So my joy and peace is directly correlated to my trusting in God. But why is that difficult to do, especially when God has proven Himself faithful again and again?

Who doesn't need hope? In a busted up, broken world where it seems that evil prevails and the people of God don't win, is there hope? What does hope look like in our everyday lives? Why do we need hope? In Part One of our series on Hope based on Romans 15:13, we are looking at our need for hope!

We're told to live our lives in such a way that we are a walking advertisement for the value and goodness of the Gospel and yet, if we really look at our lives, they exemplify the false value of sin and self and pride. David was as bold as it gets, refusing to be backed down by a giant but instead being backed up by all of heaven and the Word of God, David turned history upside down on it's head and proved to every hater that those who are bold in their stand for God are always the winners!

What is wisdom and why does it matter? What does it look like to number our days?

Before he was ever born, Samson had been set apart for the purposes of God. Even though God remained faithful to him, Samson chose to listen to the voice of the enemy over the voice of God and in so doing, wasted not only his life but his potential as a man of God. When we choose to listen to the voice of the enemy over the voice of God, we not only lose our strength but we lose our ability to see.

If Jesus purchased our complete freedom and redemption on the cross, then why do so many of us live bound to sin and addiction? Why do we return again and again to the same sin that never satisfies and so easily entangles? Only in and through the cross of Jesus Christ are chains completely broken. Whether we choose to return to bondage or not lies not on Jesus, but on us. Bound people don't number their days, bound people don't worship God, bound people don't live with a heart of wisdom. Could it be that we are wasting our lives by choosing to stay bound when Jesus' desire is to completely set us free?

What kind of a God sleeps in the midst of the raging storm? Is He so disconnected from us and our everyday realities that He chooses to disengage and sleep? God loves to prove Himself faithful, but especially in the midst of the storms of life when all odds are against us!

How much of our lives do we waste by digging up dead things? Old relationships, past failures, recent disappointments, old habits and sins? When we dig up dead things, we don't number our days but rather number our losses and when we do that, we gain a heart of foolishness instead of a heart of wisdom. We will never find the living among the dead, we will never find what we're searching for, we will never find life in old graves. What if we were asking the wrong questions?

Every single day, the forces of evil and good collide in an epic war and lives hang in the balance and with nearly 2 people dying every single second and 2 billion people in the world who have never heard of Jesus, then why does it matter that we stand and fight? And if the Gospel isn't real and God is a fake, then why is the enemy of our souls relentless in his pursuit of trying to steal, kill and destroy us? And how do we stand and fight every single time? The Scripture makes it clear for us: Who the enemy is, what's at stake, and what the strategy is. And if that isn't enough, we also know the end of the story...............................we win every time in and through Jesus Christ who conquered it all for us.

Do you know what extreme measures they go to protect the Olympic torch flame? How much more should we work to protect the fire of God planted within our hearts? How do we fight to keep the flame alive?

Why does it matter that Jesus prepares a table before us in the presence of our enemies? What keeps us from the table of fellowship with Jesus, what do we allow to get in the way of enjoying time with Jesus? David learned to strengthen himself in the Lord long before he relied on the Lord's strength to slay giants. Only when we choose to stay connected to Jesus and allow Jesus to stay connected to us will we ever fully be known and loved as we are, strengthened for the battle ahead. The ultimate way to shame the enemy of your soul is to sit and dine with Jesus and rest, knowing that He is God and He has all things worked out for our good!

In recent weeks, the current of the conversations have remained the same while the faces have changed. As God's children, there is constantly a tension between wanting to do the right thing and yet longing to do the wrong thing. And while tension makes most of us crawl under a table, this is the very thing that God uses to produce in us a work of art as He grows and stretches us and prepares to launch us into the next level. Stay in the tension, because as long as you do, it means you're in the fight against the enemy of your soul and we win every single time.

God desires obedience over sacrifice because obedience is birthed out of our love for Him. And even when we get it wrong, in His kindness and mercy, God gives us chance after chance to get it right. God not only uses vomit to show us the depravity and disgust of our own sin, but God will also use vomit to win our hearts back to Him again. We, like Jonah, would do ourselves a great favor if we would be quick to obey the first time.

Just because you slap some tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese on it doesn't mean it's pizza. As God's children, we often wear masks, unsure of who we really are and what our lives are about. God created each of us to look like Jesus, sound like Jesus, and even smell like Jesus. But so often, we walk around reeking of vomit because we return again and again to the same sins that never satisfy. What would it look like if we understood who we really are as God's children and took the masks off? Jesus endured the brutality of the cross because our lives weren't a game to Him. The prodigal son, after squandering everything the Father had given him, realized that all he ever needed was found in the Father. When the prodigal son failed to understand who his father was, he had no clue who he was and when we walk around not knowing our true identity we end up squandering the very thing that was meant to be a blessing.

I believe that prayer is one of the most powerful yet unused tools of our time. Think about it, direct access to an incredibly loving God who is available day and night and has the power to do anything, yet most of us utilize prayer as a last resort. What if we believed what we were praying for? How would that change the trajectory of not only our lives but the lives of the ones around us? Come engage in a conversation on prayer and hear an incredible testimony about a precious girl in Haiti by the name of Roberta who stole my heart forever.

Middle school is one of the most awkward seasons of life. After chasing a dream in basketball, God would totally interrupt my life with injuries and surgeries and disappointments. Could God be trusted in the midst of setback and crushed dreams?

I had the incredible opportunity to go on my first out of country mission trip at the age of 15 when I traveled to Haiti. When I was 11, I knew that God was calling me into full-time ministry and to travel the world and speak about Jesus. If Jesus is the greatest gift we've ever received, then what will we do with it? Are we spreading the good news? There are lives that hang in the balance, with nearly 2 people dying every single second. Are our lives living examples of a God who is big enough to save the day and transform us from the inside out? God wants to use our story, as part of His bigger story, to rewrite the history books for all the world........for His sake, name, honor, fame and glory!!

The Father had to treat Jesus like Barabbas so that He could treat Barabbas like Jesus. In one of the greatest exchanges of history, Jesus stepped in and took our place on the cross yet how often do we reject that gift? We can become so comfortable with the stories we hear time and time again that we grow numb to the often gruesome details that bring the story to life. In this account, we get to hear from a doctor's perspective the impact that the cross physically had on Jesus. What does it mean that the crowd chose Jesus? Maybe we've been asking ourselves the wrong question all along...........instead we should be asking, what does it mean that the Father chose to love us like Jesus when we've lived like Barabbas?