Welcome back to the Follower of One podcast. I'm Mike Henry Sr., and we do a devotional each workday where we challenge ourselves to live our faith in some way that makes Jesus visible in our workplaces.    Today, I want to talk about Acts 10:3, and I'm stealing this from Mark Batterson in his book, Draw the Circle.   I would like to encourage you to consider getting that book. It's a great book. It's based on the Circle Maker, which is another book that he wrote both about praying circles around our problems until God does something with them. We pray until something happens. Pray as long as it takes.    On day 13 of Draw the Circle, he actually talks about one day. Acts chapter 10, verse 3 from the New American Standard, says, "About the ninth hour of the day, he clearly saw in a vision an angel of God who had just come in and said to him, Cornelius."   Cornelius was a centurion, of the Italian cohort. So, he was based in Rome. He was a devout man. He feared God. It says in verse two and he prayed to God continually, but on some odd day, one day at about three o'clock in the afternoon, he clearly got a vision. An angel of God had just come and said to him, "Cornelius." He'd called his name.   What's happening here is that Cornelius will send some people to Peter. Peter will also experience a vision. And this is the way that the gospel was first given to the Gentiles rather miraculous event, or rather miraculous series of events. Actually, that took place just one day at three o'clock in the afternoon, about the ninth hour of the day, Cornelius got this vision.    Maybe there's something that you've been praying for about your work or a relationship with Jesus, or about how you interact with the people in your workplace. And you've been praying about that for a long time. I want to encourage you to pray one more day. We never know which day it is.   We never know what day and what time God will do what God is going to do. And I'm speaking to myself as I often do. As I pray for things around Follower of One or about, other activities going on in our family and in the lives of our kids and grandkids and my relatives and other people that I know.   I never know when it's the one day. I never know when it's time. God keeps it that way. This isn't about us knowing what God's going to do. It isn't about us, being there at the right moment. This is about us being followers of Jesus, constantly asking, seeking, and knocking. It says here that he was praying.   Cornelius was praying to God continually in verse two. We need to be searching for God, continually. And today I want to encourage you in your workplace search for God continually. Don't give up. Go one more day. We can all go one more day. We can all make one more prayer. We can all purpose in our hearts to wait a little longer, to be patient a little better.   Everyone who knows me knows that I am not the guy saying this to you. I'm saying this to me. This is for me. I want to learn to wait. I want to trust God, because one day at about three o'clock in the afternoon, he will do what he will do. In the meantime, it doesn't mean that we keep doing the same things over and over again, expecting our actions to bring about a different result. It does mean that we continue pursuing God; chasing after him, listening to his ideas and his suggestions, the things that he prompts into our mind that put us on his mission.   And I want to challenge you today. Let God direct you and let's be patient. Let's ask one more day. Let's wait a little longer. And let's trust God a little more.

Welcome to the Follower of One podcast. I'm Mike Henry Sr. and we've been doing these daily devotionals on business days or workdays for now over a year and a half, almost two years. This is our 543rd episode. Thank you so much for listening to these. Today, I want to talk about Isaiah chapter 43 verses 18 and 19.   "Do not call to mind the former things or ponder things of the past. Behold, I will do something new, now will spring forth. Will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, rivers in the desert." This is from the New American Standard. Again, I typically use that translation. It's the one I'm most familiar with and I memorized this verse in the New American Standard.   I enjoy this verse. I love to come back to this. "Behold, I will do something new," verse 19 begins. This is Isaiah prophesying to the Jews before the captivity, telling them about how he will punish the people who take them into captivity. And he will bring Israel back. Israel is the only nation that I'm aware of that went into captivity and stayed a nation.   It's amazing to me. I'm sure there were others. I'm confident that's not the only one. But it's amazing to me how Jesus has managed to keep his people together; how he's managed to keep the people of Israel together. The line of Jesus, if you will, the way that God brought about our salvation, he keeps all of this intact, and here he's promising these people in advance, decades in advance of what will happen.   Don't worry about the past. Don't think about the past. "Behold, I will do something new now it will spring forth. Will you not be aware of it?"  I remember being convicted one time because I felt like I was the only Christian in my workplace. And God reminded me that our overnight delivery driver who came to our office twice a day, was also a believer and he, and I would share prayer requests when we saw each other. And it was like, God reminding me, "I can do anything I want, and I will get you what you need. You just do the job that I've given you to do."    Today, you have an opportunity to honor God, by the way, you live your life in the presence of everyone you're around.   Even if you're in a bad job situation, even if you're in a negative work environment or around toxic people, no matter your circumstance; if it's, if it's painful or illegal, get out of it, do what you can to get out of it. But if you're just in a toxic work environment, if you're just in a negative circumstance in your workplace or in your relationship, be the person who trusts Jesus. Do we trust God? He's able at any time to do something new and he will. He promises it here to the Israelites. But he is the God who did it for them.   And he can do it for us. He always gives us the opportunity of something new. Now I will flip this a little bit. It is the definition of insanity to believe that you can do the same thing over and over and over again and expect a different result. God also challenges us to live in such a way that we are growing in him.   And so I don't believe that any of us are to the point to where God would tell us, "No, you're good. You don't have to, you don't have to improve any, you don't have to change." And so there's nothing he's telling us that we need to leave the same. But at the same time, we can trust him in the circumstances we find ourselves.   I want to encourage you today in your work, you are a marketplace minister. You serve others. Serve the people around you so that Jesus might become visible. That's what ministry is. It's helping the people around us have the opportunity to move one notch closer to Jesus. We can do that simply by the way we live.   And if you do that today, I'm grateful for you. Thank you for being a marketplace minister. Thank you for making a difference. Wherever it is you work or spend your time, turn your heart to God and let Jesus and the Holy Spirit direct you in how you live today and ask him to give you an opportunity to help other people move one notch, closer to him.

Hey, it's Mike Henry with Follower of One. Today I want to talk about a passage in Matthew. Jesus is speaking. This is Matthew 12:33 and I'm reading from the new living translation. A tree is identified by us fruit. If a tree is good, its fruit will be good. If a tree is bad, it's fruit will be bad. What are you known for?   What am I known for? What we find out is, is that the tree is identified by the type of fruit that it produces. And you and I are known for the type of results that we create. Do people feel better or worse when we're around? Do we bring an attitude of a group up or do we bring the attitude of work down?   Are we someone who always sees the opportunities and the encouraging things that we can say to others? Are we someone who chooses to find out what's wrong and to point out what's wrong and other things that are going on, or the attitudes that our friends have, we will be known by the results that we create?   And I want to challenge myself to think a little bit more about the legacy that I leave. What kind of an imprint does my life make on the lives of my family members on the lives of the people that are working. What type of a difference do this? Some of my actions end up making and did I do anything that made a difference in the lives of the people who will live beyond me?   I was challenged to consider this verse and to add it to our podcast simply because I was challenged to consider a 150-year vision for the legacy of my own life. Instead of thinking about. How my job produces good results for this quarter or this month, whether or not I made my sales objectives or whether or not we got our freight delivered on time, which for, from my old life, what kind of a difference is my life make a hundred years from now or 50 years from now?   What can I do to make sure that I was a positive influence on the world after? That I think is a challenge that we're being called to as believers who follow Jesus, we don't have to set a long-term horizon. I think it's a daily decision, but the sum of our daily decisions over time, I would believe, turn out to be the fruit that we are known by.   So, I want to challenge us today. Let's examine how we go to work and how we interact with people today. Did we pray for the people that we met with? Were we making time to serve them, or are we constantly living with this expectation that others should serve us? Let's be the kind of people that produce good fruit that make the lives of the people around us better.   Let's do that in such a way, even that they might add. If you pray and you ask God to put you to work in the lives of the people around you, I believe he will. If he doesn't reach out to us, you can connect with me at https://followerofone.org and you can respond or comment to this wherever you're listening to it on any platform or reply to me at mike@followerofone.org   And I'd love to talk with you about how to make a positive difference for the rest of your life.   Let's produce the kind of fruit that we want to be known by for 150 years.

Hey, it's Mike Henry with Follower of One. Today I'm continuing what we've been talking about for the last two episodes: 1 Peter 4. Today, I'd like to talk about verses three and four for the time already passed is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire of the Gentiles.   Having pursued a course of sensuality, Euless, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties, and abominable idolatry. In all this, they're surprised that you do not run with them into the same excesses of dissipation, and they malign you. I'm almost disappointed at the different ways, the different translations struggle with these two verses the new living translation says this.   You have had enough in the past of the evil things that godless people enjoy their immorality and law. Their feasting and drunkenness and wild parties. And they're terrible worship of idols. Of course, your former friends are surprised when you no longer plunge into the flood of wild and destructive things they do.   So, they signed, or you, I liked that translational a little bit better, even though I'm not sure it's a direct translation, but I think it communicates the idea. We just decided if you remember, from the previous episode, we decided that we didn't want to pursue living for ourselves anymore. We wanted instead to pursue living for the will of God.   What will happen is that we will surprise our friends. We'll surprise our coworkers when we no longer plunge into whatever it was, we used to do, as we stopped doing the things we used to do, other people notice. The time of doing that is done. He's Peter saying, we've already spent enough time living the way we live living for ourselves now.   And let's spend the rest of our lives living for God, but we will surprise our friends when we no longer plunge into what we used to do. And that way they will be surprised. Some may actually slander you or speak badly against you or malign you. These are not words that I commonly use anymore, but they will look down on us.   They don't think that we are as smart as they are. They think that we're living by some other standard, but that's actually the twist that causes them to ask us. Why are you doing this? When we do something over and above what might be normally expected? They are curious. Others are curious, are former friends are surprised.   It says in living translation, when we no longer do what they do, the time already passed is sufficient. And so, we can give this up and help them be surprised because we did not run with them into the same excess. Or the way that we used to live, we don't seem to live according to the same worldview, which is one of the common words we use or the same kind of mental model that other people live with.   I want to challenge you today, look for ways to bend your life and follow Jesus instead of doing what you normally did. And others will be curious, they will be surprised, and they will ask, I think some will ask some will sign or. That's part of the price of being a Jesus follower. Some will look at you and go, well, that's silly, or that's stupid.   They will think we're dumb. They will think we're dumb for living this way. And I feel sorry for them sometimes, because I believe we're right in the long-term, in the eternal long-term. And therefore, it could be a bad thing for them in the long-term. I experienced a lot of joy doing what Jesus has for me to do today.   And I expect to experience joy throughout eternity as a result of following him as well. And I believe that some of our friends will ask, and some will speak badly of us today. I want to challenge you, bend your life to follow Jesus and watch what happens. I believe it's all part of his plan for our world.   Thank you for being a marketplace minister and thank you for making a difference in your work. Follow him bend your life to follow the will of God instead of the loss of yourself and your flesh and watch what God does in the lives of the people around you.   Thanks very much.

Hey, it's Mike Henry with Follower of One. This is the second of a multi-part discussion on first Peter four.  Today I'd like to read verses one and two, "Therefore, since Jesus Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose, because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin. So as to live the rest of the time in the flesh, no longer for the lusts of men, but for the will of God."   Again, that's from the new American standard.  Yesterday, or in the previous episode, I spoke about how the first verse talks about we prepare ourselves by arming ourselves with the purpose that Jesus had, which was coming to die.   He came to die, and we are all destined to die.  That's our destiny. But when we are prepared to suffer in the flesh, we cease from sin. And he goes on to talk about this here. How do we stop sinning? We don't stop sinning in this life. It's when we enter the next life that we cease from sin, we live the rest of our time in this life, in the flesh, no longer for the lusts of men.   My expectations were always wrong, and I would always get surprised by my circumstances. I always dreamed about the most positive outcomes to everything.  I expected everything to work well and to go well, to be easy, to be beneficial, I always had high positive expectations. I'm a good example of why people like to be pessimists because as an optimist, I feel like I'm regularly disappointed.   I joked last time about how the secret to happiness in golf is to maintain low expectations. Many people who are pessimistic will tell you that if they can maintain low expectations, they're always positively surprised. That's not what this verse is talking about though. It's not coaching us on being pessimistic as a lifestyle.   This passage, I believe is challenging us to put aside the idea that our life works for us. We will not leave this life with anything. The treasure that we lay up in heaven, which is something that I love to think about. I believe that's in the form of the relationships that we have and the investment that we made in people and the investment that we made in helping others learn about Jesus.   To me, that's laying up treasure in heaven is basically making a difference. Taking part in Jesus's work. Jesus came to restore man to a right relationship with God. The degree to which we participate in that action. I believe we're laying up treasure in heaven. In other words, we're being challenged in this passage to focus, not on ourselves, but on what Jesus would have us do no longer for the lusts of men, but for the will of God, Jesus said over and over again that he came to do the will of his father.   He's showing us. That our job is to do the will of God the father. Our job is to make Jesus known and visible in the world.  And the way that we do that, isn't by just going to church all the time.  It's by living as a follower of Jesus Christ. That's why we talk about our five daily activities. Pray, appreciate others, know you believe, serve others, and speak for yourself.  I hope to challenge you today, as you prepare, remind yourself today, my life extends beyond my flesh. My life extends beyond that to the point where it's just me and God, there's no more sin and I'm there with him.  What do I need to do today to work towards that end to lay up treasure in heaven?   Not to be focusing on my stuff and my comfort today, but rather to focus on where I will one day be in eternity.  I believe that's the great part about this challenge.  And my favorite part of this passage is coming up in the next episode, which we'll talk about tomorrow or whenever you hear this, it's the next episode verses three and four are exciting to me.   Thank you for being a marketplace minister. Thank you for making a difference in your workplace. Today, ask God to show you how to look past your flesh and past your present circumstances to look 150 years into the future and the type of difference that you hope your life makes both in this world and in the next it all matters.

Hey, it's Mike Henry with Follower of One, and for the next couple of episodes I'd like to talk about 1 Peter 4. The first four verses of 1 Peter 4. The first verse says, "Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh arm yourselves also with the same purpose, because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin."   That's from the New American standard. That's kind of my default translation. Our attitude matters and our expectations matter. Accurate expectations are like armor. I always joke when I play golf that the secret to happiness in golf is to maintain low expectations. And in a way, some people may interpret this passage as Peter telling everyone expect things to be bad.   I'm not exactly sure that's the message here. So yes, clearly the phrase opens. Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh arm yourselves also with the same purpose, Jesus suffered and died. And this word suffering is clearly about that. He's talking about how Jesus suffered and his suffering brought about death.   But if we can arm ourselves with the same purpose, We can prepare ourselves. We have armor. We have this armor that comes from God. Is the armor what you might call pessimism or planning for the worst? I don't believe so. I believe the best is what we're looking for. The best happens to be something other than what we see and feel and think in our own minds.   I believe our world is much more broken. Then we like to admit, especially when I use the term, we as those of us in the western world who have enough money, much of the people of our brothers and sisters around the globe are not as well off and they're not as wealthy as the people of America are. Poor people in America are wealthy by most nations standards, but this suffering that he's talking about here results in death.   We will die. Prepared to die. That's a different story. How can we prepare to die? We can't prepare pessimistically to die and not, in my mind, I think my preparation for death must extend beyond it. It must extend to the resurrection, and I believe that's what Peter's saying here. If we can see past the worst that can happen to us on this planet, in this life.   Then we are free to cease from sin. He will go on and explain that phrase a little more in the next verse, and we'll talk about that tomorrow. Today I want to keep this short and simple. Let's arm ourselves with the purpose of Jesus Christ. That purpose is to follow him, be like him, and do what he said.   We will die. Death is inevitable for each and every one of us. But we can arm ourselves with the preparation that there's a life beyond that death and that life calls us to serve Jesus now and through everything that happens to us. I hope that you get this message and that I get this message that by preparing myself for all of the worst things that can happen, I'm focusing on what Jesus would have me do in spite of my situation.   In spite of the suffering, Jesus is calling me to a life that extends beyond our circumstances and to beyond this life. And I want to go there. I want to be armed for that, to serve alongside Jesus and to make a difference in his world. Today, I hope you prepare yourself not for misery and agony and difficulty, but for whatever happens, knowing that you, your life extends beyond your circumstances.   I want to focus beyond my circumstances today. I arm myself with the purpose that Jesus had. I get to serve other people regardless of what happens today so that he might become glorified. Thanks so much for being a marketplace minister, and thank you for intentionally trying to live your faith to make a difference in the lives of the people that you meet every day.

Logan Bloom is an author, speaker, and founder of the Servant Leader Network. Their mission is to help empower leaders to be a light to the world in whatever context they find themselves in. As a pastor’s kid, Logan felt called to serve God, which he thought meant attending bible school and choosing vocational ministry. So he followed that path and has been in ministry most of his life. But he realized that you don’t have to be in ministry to be a light to the world. Ministry isn’t just left to pastors, church staff, and missionaries. God is activating the saints in every sphere of society to be a light to the world.  Ministry is service. You don’t have to quit your job to do that. Detaching Jesus from the day-to-day is a mistake. It’s not the vision Jesus has for us. God loves to get into the ordinary details in our lives and turn them into extraordinary things.  In this episode of Follower of One, Logan shares how his ministry is helping equip business leaders to be a light to the world exactly where they are.  You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in... Learn more about Logan Bloom [1:23] The Servant Leader Network [5:49] The courses and resources available [8:51] Consider yourself a servant (not a leader) [12:31]  What’s next for Servant Leader Network [17:49] Logan’s prayer for Follower of One [25:20]  Resources & People Mentioned Servant Leader Network Connect with Logan Bloom Connect on LinkedIn   Subscribe to Follower of One: A Faith at Work Podcast Audio Production and Show Notes by - PODCAST FAST TRACK

Welcome back to the follower of one podcast. I'm Mike Henry Sr. Thank you so much for being a part of this podcast. I'm grateful that God has called us to do these episodes, and I believe he will continue. We've been talking through 2 Peter 1. Beginning pretty much at verse two and going through verse eight.   So far, and today I'd like to add a little bit more to this series. I keep thinking it's about to end and I believe it will soon. Let's see how we could do today. For today, let's talk about verses nine and 10. For he who lacks these qualities is blind or shortsighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins.   Therefore, brethren be all the more diligent to make certain about his calling and choosing you. For as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble. Let me go ahead and read verse 11 two for in this way, the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.   We've been talking about this whole list of traits, these list of attributes as being a process. It begins with God giving us faith, and then we supply moral excellence and knowledge, self-control and perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love. We add those things to the faith. We add each thing in its order almost.   It's almost like the series that we go through and I spoke in the last episode. About how we make a lap around the track today. I think he's challenging us that if we lack these qualities, we're blind or shortsighted. We've forgotten the race that we run. We've forgotten the which lap we're on. We've forgotten the purification that we were given from our former sins.   We just stopped focusing on our relationship with Jesus when I first became a Christian. I remember thinking, you know, it's Wednesday and I haven't thought about Jesus at all since Sunday. I would go days without thinking about my relationship with Jesus. I would forget my position in Christ and I would have to be reminded Jesus or the Holy Spirit would remind me, or something else would remind me.   I think sometimes we can also get stuck on one of these, one of these issues I. I admitted at the beginning of this that I come to this because I struggle with self-control. I constantly give myself a pass, and it's almost like every time I get to the self-control chapter, I take a break, I give myself a bye, I take a day off.   I want to keep making laps around this track because every lap is an opportunity to grow, to not be blind or shortsighted. But to remember and be diligent about making my calling certain, as long as I practice these things, I won't stumble. If I keep making trips around this track, I have the opportunity to continue my growth, to continue growing in the Lord, to walk with him more.   And I see that because now after being a Christian for a really long time, I do spend more time. Consciously thinking about my relationship with Jesus. It didn't happen overnight. It takes time. And that time is something that I was always in a hurry for. I always wanted God to make something happen today.   But what we're being told here is we make laps around this track and we grow in our relationship to Jesus, and the more times you've been around the track, the less you will stumble. The more you know who you're chasing, the more we know what we're doing, and the more we know the one who calls us, the greater the likelihood that we will not stumble Jesus will be present in our mind on a daily basis or on a moment by moment basis.   Our faith will be real to us on a moment by moment basis, and as a result, the entrance into the kingdom of our Lord and Savior. Everything about knowing him and knowing God will be abundantly supplied to us. We get that because we made these laps around this track today. I would like to encourage you to make sure that you grow.   Keep moving around the track. Don't let something like self-control stop you, as I'm telling you is my challenge. I'm admitting that here so that you can help me by praying for me and make sure that I keep going past self-control to perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love that I keep making my laps around the track.   And I prayed that for you. I prayed it before I recorded this, and I will continue to pray it. Thank you so much for being a marketplace minister. Thank you for growing in your faith. Thank you for letting your life make a difference in the lives of the people around you.

Welcome back to the Follower of One podcast. I'm Mike Henry Sr., the founder of Follower of One. And I like to talk a little bit about the Bible every day and challenge us to go to work as people who make a difference in the lives of the people that we interact with. Today, we're wrapping up the series on second Peter, one, one through eight. I want to finish by reading second, Peter eight today. "For these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord. Jesus Christ. "I read from the New American Standard translation of the Bible. Those words "useless" and "unfruitful" are translated slightly differently in different texts. But the general idea is these eight qualities that we've just been talking about beginning with faith, moral excellence, knowledge self-control perseverance, godliness, brotherly, kindness, and love. These qualities are this process. I believe that Peter is talking about. In this process, God gives us the faith. Then we add moral excellence and knowledge and self-control and perseverance. We add these things. I always feel like the before picture, I've been a Christ-follower for a long time, but I still often feel underdeveloped. I feel like I should have more faith or I should be able to trust God more. I should walk more in my ability to trust him and to obey him and to do what he says. And I don't often measure up. And that is a problem for me. I work on that regularly. Maybe you feel that way. I think what we need to do is give ourselves a little bit of a pass because what we learn here is we iterate through this process. Faith, moral excellence, knowledge. All of these qualities are a process and we grow in them. We make another lap around the track. I would consider this a lap around the track. So we exercise our moral excellence and our knowledge and our self-control and our perseverance through a series of activities that occur over a period of time in our lives. And at the end by adding brotherly, kindness and love. We grow in our faith. Our faith grows. God gave us the faith, but he didn't give us a fully developed faith. It's still our responsibility to grow it. That's the challenge that Peter gives us here with the phrase "increasing". We need to be increasing. We need to be growing our faith. And that requires that we grow our moral excellence and our knowledge all the way through to love. We want to continue to grow and those things are ours to do. In fact, I think what I'll do is I'll add one more episode to this and talk about verse nine tomorrow. To continue growing, eventually we grow to reduce the uselessness or the unfruitfulness of our knowledge of our Lord, Jesus Christ. If you remember back in verse two, it talks about the knowledge of God and in verse three, the knowledge of God results in us, getting everything pertaining to life and godliness, Peter's helping us grow in our knowledge. I want to help you grow in your knowledge, but it's not through any teaching of mine. Let's read the scripture and let's trust the Lord. Let's spend some time obeying him today. Ask him, go ahead and pray. That's our first daily activity. Punch in, get on the clock and ask God to show you where you need to grow today. What can you bring today? Is it godliness or is it brotherly kindness or is it love? Let's bring some more of these qualities to our workplace. Eventually, God guides us through this process. Our faith grows and we become more useful and more fruitful. In the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's my prayer for us today. My prayer is that we become more useful and more fruitful, right where we are in our workplaces, however, we spend our time each day. We become more useful and fruitful. Thank you for being a marketplace minister. Thank you for growing in your faith. Thank you for actually investing a little energy every day, to try and continue to increase these qualities and become more useful and fruitful. The difference that you make matters. Over time, this changes and God uses us in the lives of people. Thank you for being a marketplace minister. And also thank you for checking out https://followerofone.org. That's our website. Go there, check out our online community and also sign up for the next Marketplace Mission Trip, where you get to practice these things a little more every day. Thanks very much.

Welcome back to the Follower of One podcast. We continue our discussion of second Peter chapter one verses five through eight. Today, our verse is verse seven. "And in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness love." If you remember from the previous episodes, we are supplying these things to our faith. The faith was given to us by God. And then we supply moral excellence and knowledge and self-control and perseverance and godliness. We have supplied those things. We've talked about those in previous episodes. Today, we want to talk about brotherly kindness and love. These are two Greek words that the Greeks use to distinguish between different kinds of love. And we tend to use the word "love" to mean both of them. Brotherly kindness. You maybe have heard people talk about "phileo" love. I believe it's where we get the word Philadelphia. It's this desire to do what's best for our brother to look out for our family and our friends. Brotherly kindness is an appreciation similar to what would be expected of us in a workplace. Brotherly kindness, being kind to the people that we work with, the people that we interact with. when we talk about appreciating others is one of our five daily activities at Follower of One. We're talking about brotherly kindness and love a little bit. We're vague because I believe both of these go together in our progression of our faith. Brotherly kindness, the first one is this affection that we have for people that we know. We look out for the people we know. And then we go on, we graduate into this next level of love. Again, remember that we bring it. It's not given to us, but we bring this love. The last love that we add to our brotherly kindness is "agape" love. This is a different Greek word, but this is a love that is intentional. Love is action. This love. Acts in the best interests of the people that we interact with every day. This love does what's best for others, even to our own detriment, in some degree. These are the kinds of love that are, it's our challenge to bring. We add them. It's our job to bring these qualities to our faith. God challenges us through the apostle Peter and through his word. To bring this kind of kindness and love to the interactions that we have every day at work today, I would like to challenge us what can we do to love the people around us more? Well, our first daily activity is to pray and maybe what we need to do today is ask God how we can show more kindness, more, love, more appreciation for the people that we interact with. Who do we look past? Who do we miss? Are there servers at food restaurants or male persons or other people that serve us in different ways? And we just look past them. Let's add brotherly kindness and love to the interactions that we have with people today. I believe that's our challenge as followers of Jesus Christ. When we see in this progression that Peter. As run us through faith results in love. And I believe that we even iterate through this. It's almost like it's a cycle. So our faith, we add moral excellence. We add knowledge. We add self-control perseverance, godliness, brotherly, kindness, and love. And it brings us right back to God. This whole process is an iterative process to grow us up in our face. The end result being that we end up like, God, God is love. Thank you for being a marketplace minister. And thank you so much for making a difference in the lives of others as you work your faith and your actions matter. And I'm excited that you're listening to this podcast, take a minute and share it with your friends, or if you'd like to join us at https://followerofone.org.