Somewhere between the dance studio and the hockey rink, most parents feel it. That flash of pride when your kid scores the goal, nails the routine, or brings home the A, and that gut punch when they strike out, mess up, or fall short. It's natural; we're built by God to love our kids and want them to succeed. But somewhere along the way, some of us start grading our own life by how our kids perform. Their wins become our trophies. Their struggles become a verdict on who we are as parents. And in the worst case, everything meaningful in life starts to revolve around that child. Then one day they grow up and move out, and it isn't just an empty bedroom. For some of us, it's an empty identity.

In this message from our Idols series, we look at Psalm 127:3, where Scripture calls children a heritage from the Lord and the fruit of the womb a reward. The Hebrew word for heritage means an inheritance assigned by someone else, something you steward but never fully own. Our kids belong to God first. He's entrusted them to us for a season, to train them up in the way they should go, as Proverbs 22:6 puts it, not to build our own identity, security, or belonging on them. When we forget that, love for our children can quietly slide into worship of our children, and it's usually the last place we think to look for an idol.

I also share a personal story from driving my oldest son to college this year, and what a 26-hour drive home alone forced me to face about my own heart as a father. If your peace or your sense of worth tends to rise and fall with how your kids are doing, this message is for you. We'll talk about why this idol is so easy to miss, what it costs us and our kids when we don't catch it, and how the gospel gives us a way back. Watch the full message, and if it hits home, I'd love to hear your reflection in the comments below. Find more teaching like this and connect with our church community at LeadBiblically.com.

TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 The trap of grading our life by our kids
1:20 Introducing the Idols series
1:44 Children as a heritage from God, Psalm 127:3
4:22 How this idolatry sneaks up on us
7:00 Train up a child, Proverbs 22:6
9:54 Why this happens, the sin underneath every idol
11:58 My story, driving my son to college
15:31 A prayer to put things back in their rightful place
17:28 This week's discussion question

#IdolOfChildren #ChristianParenting #ParentingAndFaith #Faith #Jesus #ChristianLiving #BibleStudy #ChristianGrowth

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You'd never say it out loud, but be honest: have you ever needed your spouse to make you feel okay? To remind you that you're safe, that you're loved, that you matter? Maybe it shows up as checking in one too many times, or feeling shaken when they're distracted, tired, or short with you. It's such a natural thing to want from the person closest to you, but there's a line where wanting it turns into needing it, in a way only God was ever meant to fill.

This is the first message in our new series, IDOLS: Uncovering Misplaced Worship, and we're starting with the idol of relationship. Genesis 2:24 gives us God's actual design for marriage: "Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." That's a beautiful gift, meant to be lived out through leaving, holding fast, and becoming one. But somewhere along the way, a lot of us quietly ask our spouse to be the answer to our identity, our security, and our belonging, things only Jesus was ever meant to provide. We'll look at what Jesus says about loving Him above every human relationship in Luke 14:26, how Paul ties marriage back to the gospel itself in Ephesians 5:31-32, and what theologian Timothy Keller says about marriage in his book The Meaning of Marriage. The truth we keep coming back to: a spouse can bring you connection, but only Christ can bring you completion.

I also share the week my wife Nicole was diagnosed with cancer, and the moment I found out whether Christ was actually first in my marriage or just something I said He was. If you're married or engaged, this message gives you two honest questions to ask yourself now, before your own day of testing comes. Watch the full message, then come back and tell me in the comments: where have you leaned on your spouse for something only Jesus should carry? Subscribe for the rest of the IDOLS series as we uncover the idols competing for our worship week by week, and find more resources and teaching at LeadBiblically.com.

TIMESTAMPS:

0:00 Every Person Worships Something
1:24 Kicking Off the Idols Series
2:08 God's Design for Marriage (Genesis 2)
3:45 The Bottom Line: Connection vs Completion
3:58 Why This Happens to "Normal" Couples
4:54 When Idolatry Starts in Dating
5:23 3 Signs You've Made Your Spouse an Idol
6:35 Jesus' Hard Words on Loving Him First
8:16 How Marriage Points to the Gospel
9:25 Timothy Keller on Marriage and the Gospel
10:25 My Story: The Week of Nicole's Diagnosis
13:25 Don't Wait for Your Day of Testing
14:35 Two Signs You're Leaning on Your Spouse Too Much
16:12 Two Questions to Ask Yourself
16:50 The Freedom of Leaning on Jesus Instead
18:06 The Gospel: A Restored Connection With God
19:39 Closing Prayer
20:15 Next Week: The Idol of Children

#ChristianMarriage #Idols #Faith #Jesus #ChristianLiving #BibleStudy #ChristianGrowth

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Maybe you've sat at a hospital bed and wondered if easing someone's pain sooner would actually be the kind thing to do. Maybe it's you facing a hard diagnosis, wondering how much suffering you're supposed to carry before it's okay to ask for it to end. These aren't hypothetical questions anymore. Assisted dying laws are expanding fast, and most of us have never really worked out what we believe when the moment actually arrives.

In this message, I walk through the only three accounts in Scripture where someone was asked to help another person die: Abimelech, Saul, and Samson. Each one is different, and none of them hand the authority to end a life over to another human being, even when the person was already suffering or facing certain death. The New Testament and the first few centuries of church history are silent too. No tradition ever developed for helping someone else die, even in seasons when suffering and fear were just as real as they are now.

So if Scripture never gives us permission to help someone die, what's left for us to do? I believe the answer is comfort. Paul tells the church in Corinth that God is "the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction" (2 Corinthians 1:3-4). We're not called to end suffering by ending a life. We're called to carry the weight of comfort for as long as it takes, the same way Christ carried it for us on the cross.

That calling costs something. Real comfort takes time, presence, and resources that are often in short supply, and I share some research in this message on how the desire to end one's life often fades once real comfort and care actually show up. It's a hard, hopeful case for why the church can't just talk about comfort; we have to become people who practice it.

If this teaching challenges or encourages you, I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. Subscribe for more teaching like this every week, and find more resources for faith and leadership at LeadBiblically.com.

TIMESTAMPS:

0:00 Introduction: the MAiD landscape in Canada
1:50 Series recap and today's question: who has authority over life and death
2:47 Two caveats before we dig in
4:41 What Scripture does not give us permission for
5:34 Three biblical accounts of someone asking for help to die
6:20 Abimelech: no lesson in obedience alone
7:26 Saul: authority that never transfers, even by request
9:56 Samson: the only account where God is asked directly
11:57 What the New Testament and church history never developed
13:37 Fast forward to our modern era
14:32 Comfort: the answer Scripture actually gives us
15:49 Paul's instruction in three letters
18:56 Living this out practically
20:42 The research on suicidal desire
23:26 The cost of comfort: the Saskatchewan example
27:48 Full circle: the wound only Jesus heals
30:22 Invitation and sinner's prayer
32:45 Communion: bread and cup
36:01 Discussion and prayer focus

#AssistedDying #Suffering #Faith #Jesus #ChristianLiving #BibleStudy #ChristianGrowth

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You know the feeling. Someone brings up politics at the dinner table, or a headline hits your phone before you've even had your coffee, and something in your chest tightens before anyone's said a word you disagree with. Every election season starts to feel like a fight for the soul of the country, and if you've ever felt torn between showing up for your nation and staying anchored in Christ, this message is for you.

In Matthew 22:15 to 22, religious and political leaders try to trap Jesus with a question about paying taxes to Rome. Pay the tax, and He looks like a Roman collaborator. Refuse, and it's treason. Instead of taking the bait, Jesus asks for a coin and turns their trap into the clearest teaching on faith and politics anyone's ever given. "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's" (Matthew 22:21, ESV). That coin carried Caesar's image, so it belonged to Caesar. You carry God's image, so you belong to Him first, and that changes everything about how you hold your politics.

We also walk through Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2, where Paul and Peter tell believers to honour governing authorities even under a hostile emperor, and Acts 5, where the apostles remind us we obey God rather than men when the two ever come into conflict. Then we get practical. What does it actually look like to guard your heart when a political conversation starts to rise, instead of letting your feed decide who the enemy is? And what does it look like to act with honour when your side loses an election, instead of writing off half the people around you? The bottom line for the Christian: spiritual identity has to come before political loyalty. Not instead of it. Before it.

If your hope has quietly been resting on an election, a leader, or a headline, this message is an invitation to put it back where it belongs. Watch the full teaching, and let me know in the comments where you've felt this tension the most in your own life. If this helps you, subscribe for more teaching like it, and find more resources, books, and the podcast at LeadBiblically.com.

TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 The tension of faith and politics
2:34 Matthew 22: Jesus and the political trap
4:01 The coin: render to Caesar, render to God
9:57 Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2: honouring authority
15:22 Why this still matters: the data on political division
21:44 Guarding your heart
24:05 Acting with honour when your party loses
28:22 Back to the temple courts: the gospel
33:07 Closing prayer
35:20 Thanks, updates, and next week

#FaithAndPolitics #ChristianCitizenship #BiblicalLeadership #Faith #Jesus #ChristianLiving #BibleStudy #ChristianGrowth

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I gave this message to a room full of teenagers at Fusion Alaska, our statewide youth conference, but honestly, I'd give it to you too. Your generation, and the generation you're leading, is standing at what I call a hinge moment. AI can write an essay, finish a poem, and even hand out spiritual advice, but it can never generate a soul. Psalm 139:13-14 (ESV) says God formed us, He didn't generate us, and that one distinction changes how we lead the people God has put in our care through a culture flooded with fakes. We walk through what the Human Genome Project actually proves about how you were designed, why counterfeit AI relationships are quietly reshaping a whole generation's ability to connect with real people, why nearly half of practicing Christians say they'd trust AI with their own spiritual growth, and why the Dead Sea Scrolls still matter in an AI age when everything else feels like it can be faked. This isn't a talk about running from technology. It's about remembering who formed you long before any of this existed, and helping the people in your care remember the same thing about themselves.

If this speaks to you, or to a student, a son, a daughter, or a leader you're walking alongside, watch the full message and pass it on to someone who needs to hear it. Subscribe for more teaching like this one, and drop a comment below telling me where you've felt this tension in your own life or ministry lately. Whether you're a pastor, a parent, or a youth leader, this is a conversation worth having before the next generation has it without you. You can find more resources like this at LeadBiblically.com.

TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 Why This Isn't an Anti-AI Talk
0:33 The Hinge Moment You're Standing In
3:20 What Do You Know About AI? (Audience Q&A)
6:56 Why Your Generation Can Spot a Fake
9:19 A World Where Nobody Trusts the Video Anymore
11:28 The Temptation to Let AI Create for You
13:08 Formed, Not Generated (Psalm 139)
14:18 Your DNA and the Human Genome Project
17:14 Journal 1: The Real You
17:42 Counterfeit Connections and Artificial Spirituality
25:02 Created for Good Works (Ephesians 2:10)
26:02 The Dead Sea Scrolls and a Book That Still Stands
28:21 Journal 3: The Real, Real
29:27 AI Will Never Generate a Soul 30:38 Closing Prayer

#ArtificialIntelligence #DigitalDiscipleship #GenZFaith #Faith #Jesus #ChristianLiving #BibleStudy #ChristianGrowth

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Somewhere there might be a hard drive full of files nobody's opened in years, or a filing cabinet with handwritten notes from every Sunday he ever preached. Maybe it's your dad. Maybe it's your grandfather. He gave his life to those messages, and most of them never made it past the Sunday he preached them.

If he's still serving today, those sermons are sitting there waiting. If he's gone now, that box of notes or that old recording might be one of the last things you have left of his voice and what he believed. Either way, the words don't have to stay buried. That box of notes deserves more than a place in storage.

I'm Jeremy Norton, a pastor and a published author, and I know what it takes to turn words spoken from a pulpit into something that keeps reaching people. That's exactly what Pulpit to Pages was built to do. Paul told Timothy to take what he'd heard and pass it to people who could keep teaching it (2 Timothy 2:2 ESV). A sermon preached once was never meant to stay in one room.

The process is simple. Send whatever you have, however much or little that is: full manuscripts, audio transcripts, study notes, even sermons that only exist on an old cassette tape. I'll work through the material with you and shape it into a polished manuscript that sounds like him, one sermon per chapter.

I've published six books of my own, some through a traditional publisher and some on my own, so I know both sides of getting a manuscript into someone's hands. Whether you're looking for something to share within the family and the church, or something polished enough to submit to a publisher, there's a version of this built for that.

The people sitting in those pews years ago were changed by what he preached. There are people today who could use those same words. Watch the full video, subscribe for more on faith and leadership, and if this is something you've thought about for your own sermons or a loved one's, start the conversation at LeadBiblically.com/PulpitToPages.

TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 The question
0:05 Why it matters
0:27 Who I am
0:39 How Pulpit to Pages works
0:55 Where to go next

#PulpitToPages #SermonLegacy #ChristianBooks #Faith #Jesus #ChristianLiving #BibleStudy #ChristianGrowth

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Have you ever been told that if you really loved someone, you'd just accept whatever they believe, no questions, no pushback? That disagreeing, even gently and kindly, somehow makes you the unloving one? Maybe you've heard it in a phrase like "if you loved me, you'd accept me for who I am," or "a real friend would just be happy for me and celebrate my choice." Those phrases sound compassionate, but they're built on an assumption worth questioning. Western culture, and especially here in Canada, has quietly swapped love for affirmation, and it shows up in our friendships, our families, and our online conversations.

This is week four of our Questions and Answers series, and we're testing that cultural assumption against what Paul actually wrote. In 1 Corinthians 13:5-6, love does not insist on its own way, is not irritable or resentful, and does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. Digging into the original Greek, that word for resentful is literally an accounting term, keeping a ledger of wrongs, and the word for rejoice shows up twice in one verse using two different words, one personal, one shared with others. Paul is describing a love that holds truth and grace together instead of trading one for the other. We picture it as the difference between a doorway, where agreement is demanded just to get in, and a table, where honest conversation is welcome. The research backs Paul up here too: studies on self-esteem show that constant praise without honesty doesn't build resilience; it creates fragility, while a study on honest communication found we consistently overestimate how much our relationships suffer when we tell each other the truth.

We land this message at the communion table, because that's really where this all points, a place where honesty and grace sit together. Watch the full message for the whole study, and if it challenges how you think about love, hit subscribe so you catch the rest of this series. Drop a comment and let me know where this hits closest to home for you. Find more teaching and resources at LeadBiblically.com.

TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 Introduction, the culture of agreement
1:35 Welcome & series intro
2:34 1 Corinthians 13 in context
3:15 Reading 1 Corinthians 13:5-6
4:51 "Does not insist on its own way"
5:32 "Not irritable or resentful"
6:43 "Rejoices with the truth"
8:23 Doorway vs. table
10:17 Bottom line: table, not doorway
11:15 What the research shows
14:02 The takeaway
15:42 Application, living this out
16:54 Grace and truth (John 1:14)
17:27 Communion
22:56 Discussion & prayer

#Love #TruthAndGrace #Faith #Jesus #ChristianLiving #BibleStudy #ChristianGrowth

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Before you even get out of bed in the morning, something has usually already tried to tell you who you are. Maybe it's your phone lighting up before your eyes adjust to the room. Maybe it's a memory or comparison you can't quite shake. Maybe it's just the mirror. Most of us never stop to ask which of those voices actually gets to decide who we are, and that question sits underneath a lot of the exhaustion, comparison, and quiet confusion so many of us carry, especially as gender and sexuality get tied more and more tightly to personal identity.

In this message, part of our Questions and Answers series on finding truth in God's Word, we open Titus chapter 3 and ask what Scripture actually says about where identity comes from. Paul tells a young pastor named Titus that God saved us "not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy" (Titus 3:5), and that through Jesus we "become heirs according to the hope of eternal life" (Titus 3:7). Your identity is given to you, not taken, inherited, not declared.

We also look honestly at what the research shows about culture's current approach to gender and sexual identity. Statistics Canada's most recent data found that 27 percent of 2SLGBTQ+ youth met the criteria for a major depressive episode in the past year, compared to 11 percent of their peers, and 25 percent reported thoughts of suicide, compared to 5 percent, numbers too serious for any of us to look away from. Then we walk through a simple picture called the Identity Circle that shows two completely different paths, one built on status and self-determination, and one built on what God has already given.

If you're wrestling with who gets to define you, or you love someone who is, I hope this gives you something solid to stand on, truth and grace held together. Watch the full message above, and if it's helpful, consider subscribing so you don't miss what's ahead in this series. I'd love to hear your reflections or questions in the comments below. You can find more teaching and resources anytime at LeadBiblically.com.

0:00 Who Decides Who You Are?
3:31 What Titus 3 Says About Identity
7:44 The Data Behind Culture's Story
25:55 The Identity Circle, Two Paths
34:11 The Gospel and a Closing Prayer
38:52 Closing Thoughts and What's Next

#Identity #TruthAndGrace #QuestionsAndAnswers #Faith #Jesus #ChristianLiving #BibleStudy #ChristianGrowth

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LeadBiblically.com | Navigating the Life and Leadership God Has Called You To