You can do all the right religious things and still carry a quiet kind of hate. That’s the uncomfortable question we bring to 1 John 3, where John says the message from the beginning is simple: we should love one another. If that sounds obvious, John makes it impossible to ignore by pulling in Cain, a man who brought an offering to God and then murdered his own brother. The point lands hard: worship that never becomes love is not Christian maturity, it’s a warning sign.

We talk through how resentment grows, how jealousy turns someone into “the problem,” and why conflict can warp our memory of people we once cared about. John’s diagnostic is both challenging and clarifying: love is evidence that we have passed from death to life. The world may hate you, love may not be returned, and faithfulness may not be rewarded with approval, but none of that becomes permission to respond with hate.

Then John flips the script from Cain to Jesus. “This is how we have come to know love: he laid his life down for us.” We get practical about what costly love looks like in everyday life: time, attention, generosity, awkward phone calls, apologies, forgiveness, and showing up when you don’t know what to say. We also address guilt and self-condemnation with John’s reminder that God is greater than our hearts.

To close, we give one specific challenge straight from Jesus in Matthew 5:44: pray for your enemies, with wisdom about boundaries and the reminder that prayer is not the same thing as reconciliation. If you found this helpful, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the conversation.

Support the show

If you enjoyed this episode, consider subscribing to Madison Church on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback means the world to us, so please take a moment to leave a review and share the podcast with your friends and family.

For inquiries, suggestions, or collaboration opportunities, please reach out to us at help@madisonchurch.com.

For the latest updates and behind-the-scenes content, follow us on social media:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• YouTube

New episodes are released every Monday, so mark your calendars and join us weekly!

If you'd like to support the show, you can make a donation here. Your generosity helps us continue to bring you meaningful content.

This podcast is intended for general informational purposes only. The views expressed by the hosts or guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Madison Church. Any reliance you place on such information is strictly at your own risk. For detailed information regarding our terms of use and privacy policy, please visit our website.

Thank you for being part of the Madison Church community! We appreciate your support.

Knowing the right thing and doing the right thing are not the same, and most of us feel that gap every day. We can quote the research on sleep, admit our phones are training us to scroll late, and still blue screen ourselves into exhaustion. That same disconnect shows up in faith, where it’s possible to “believe the right things” and yet stay unchanged. We dig into why information isn’t formation and why spiritual growth usually fails at the level of reflexes, habits, and love.

We turn to 1 John, where John writes to a bruised church and refuses to lead with fear. His goal is confidence, not shame. We talk about what it means to remain in Christ, why belonging comes first (“we are already God’s children”), and how the Christian life lives in the tension of already and not yet. With help from N.T. Wright, we explore how future hope is meant to shape present choices, not replace them with escapism.

Then we face the tougher language about sin. John isn’t claiming Christians never struggle; he’s rejecting the idea that we can make peace with sin while claiming allegiance to Jesus. We unpack sin as slavery, connect it to Jesus’ own words in John 8 and Paul’s warning in Romans 6, and introduce the “Christus Victor” view of the gospel: Jesus doesn’t only forgive guilt, he breaks chains. Finally, we land in practice, using Dallas Willard’s insight that grace opposes earning, not effort, and pointing toward the prayer of examen and communion as a weekly rhythm of honesty, surrender, and hope.

If this helped you rethink Christian formation, subscribe for more, share it with a friend who’s tired of shallow answers, and leave a review so more people can find the conversation. What’s one area where you want belief to become real change?

Support the show

If you enjoyed this episode, consider subscribing to Madison Church on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback means the world to us, so please take a moment to leave a review and share the podcast with your friends and family.

For inquiries, suggestions, or collaboration opportunities, please reach out to us at help@madisonchurch.com.

For the latest updates and behind-the-scenes content, follow us on social media:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• YouTube

New episodes are released every Monday, so mark your calendars and join us weekly!

If you'd like to support the show, you can make a donation here. Your generosity helps us continue to bring you meaningful content.

This podcast is intended for general informational purposes only. The views expressed by the hosts or guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Madison Church. Any reliance you place on such information is strictly at your own risk. For detailed information regarding our terms of use and privacy policy, please visit our website.

Thank you for being part of the Madison Church community! We appreciate your support.

Every day, something is trying to disciple us. A newsfeed, a podcast clip, a political tribe, a “spiritual” take that sounds confident, or the subtle fear that somebody else has secret insight we don’t. That pressure isn’t new. John writes 1 John to a church in conflict after people leave the community and start teaching competing claims about God, and the result is exactly what we still feel today: doubt, agitation, and the temptation to chase every controversy.

We work through 1 John 2 and talk about what real Christian discernment looks like when the world is loud. John’s answer is surprisingly steady: God has not left us defenseless. We have the truth about Jesus we received from the beginning, and we have the Holy Spirit who guides us into truth. That leads to a practical question many of us have heard across a table: “I was praying and God told me to tell you…” What do we do with that? We unpack why the Spirit’s ministry never competes with Christ and why spiritual experiences must stay anchored to Jesus as Lord.

From there, we press into everyday formation. If Jesus is the center, what does that mean for money, relationships, power, sexuality, and politics? We share a personal story of Jesus disrupting inherited conclusions, and we lean on Paul’s framework for freedom: not just “is it allowed,” but “is it beneficial,” “does it build others up,” and “is it mastering me.” If you’ve been wondering who or what is shaping you lately, this conversation is an invitation to return to the center.

Subscribe for more, share this with a friend who feels overwhelmed by competing voices, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show. What voice has been forming you most recently?

Support the show

If you enjoyed this episode, consider subscribing to Madison Church on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback means the world to us, so please take a moment to leave a review and share the podcast with your friends and family.

For inquiries, suggestions, or collaboration opportunities, please reach out to us at help@madisonchurch.com.

For the latest updates and behind-the-scenes content, follow us on social media:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• YouTube

New episodes are released every Monday, so mark your calendars and join us weekly!

If you'd like to support the show, you can make a donation here. Your generosity helps us continue to bring you meaningful content.

This podcast is intended for general informational purposes only. The views expressed by the hosts or guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Madison Church. Any reliance you place on such information is strictly at your own risk. For detailed information regarding our terms of use and privacy policy, please visit our website.

Thank you for being part of the Madison Church community! We appreciate your support.