Hi all,
Thanks again for being a subscriber and joining with us in this unfolding discovery of God and His Kingdom.
Today we have three updates to share -
New audio tracks released
For those who are newer to the publication, we have slowly been going back through our older issues and recording them to audio, professionally mixed and set on top of original ambient music.
We now have 7 tracks finished and are making an effort to produce these more frequently. Here is where you can listen and download:
Spotify (or any podcasting platform)
Bandcamp (if you’d like to download them)
YouTube (we have some lyric videos up, but not all of them yet)
If you enjoy the audio versions of the content, consider leaving a comment to let us know, or you can upgrade to a paid subscription to help us cover some of the expenses.
A commentary
I’ve never been much of a commentary person, yet recently I was gifted a copy of “Romans 9,” a commentary of sorts written by Martyn Lloyd-Jones. His writing style inspired me and after finishing reading through 1 Peter this week, I felt compelled to summarize what I had learned. This turned into 9 1/2 pages in my journal, and I’m calling it a commentary of sorts on the first chapter of 1 Peter.
An excerpt below:
“even though now for a short time, if necessary, you suffer grief in various trials…”
In other translations, we can further understand this word grief to mean heaviness, sorrow and distress. Yet, there is a reason for all of this, Peter continues.
“…so that the proven character of your faith—more valuable than gold which, though perishable, is refined by fire—may result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
It is not, as some would say, meaningless. It’s not suffering for the sake of suffering, nor is it happenstance, the type of thing we experience simply because we all experience it. To take up this living hope will, he warns, most likely result in grief, heaviness and distress, but it is for our very specific benefit, “the proven character of our faith.” This proving can be understood simply to mean a revealing of the truth - whether our faith is real or false. Peter’s caution tells us something significant then, that it is possible to be one who believes themselves to have taken hold of faith, yet for this faith to be untrue. Let us consider this more closely.
If our faith be revealed as false, it will happen in either one of two places.
I’m not sure if I will continue this or if it was one-time, please reply to this email or leave a comment and share your thoughts if you do have an opinion.
A personal update
It may shock you to learn that we don’t make a full-time living writing Kingdom Heard :) Instead, I work in marketing and up until recently led as the VP of Marketing for a software startup. As of January, I’ve stepped down from that role and will be attempting to work as a full-time freelance writer. We have prayed about it and while we don’t know if this will ultimately work out long-term, we do have confidence it’s the direction the Lord is currently leading us.
Lastly, we are praying into the idea of a possible relocation. We would love to have your prayers on this matter as well. The ideal move would most likely allow us to downsize, perhaps go more rural and reduce our monthly overhead. (so much to say on this topic, but we’ll keep it brief for now)
In love,
Derek