Deeper Daily Podcast- March 10, 2026

0:00Hello my friends and welcome back to the Deeper Daily podcast. I'm your host Paul. It is the 10th day of March and it is a Tuesday as we head towards the middle of the week. I hope it is up and running well for you and that you are resting in his good graces. I was so moved this morning before I began recording to receive an email from a longtime listener and they'll know who they are. About how this podcast helped get them through some very tumultuous moments in their life and helped get them through a period of question and doubt and that storm, the darkness that hits so many of us at different times where we ride that roller coaster of faith. I've received emails like that in the past but this one was particularly moving to me because it wasn't our message of God's love or it wasn't our message of radical grace or easing someone's conscience about eschatology.

1:11Those are the kind of emails I've received before about our podcast. This was it wasn't any of those things. It was the fact that we were there every day just working through a book. They even said I don't know what book it was at the time but every day I could come back and you would just go inverse by verse and there it was and it is that consistency just continuing to walk through that sound. It got me to thinking and I've had this in my mind all morning since before starting today. It got me thinking about the fact that sometimes the best thing we can do in our journey is just go back to the word. We might not have a lot of confidence, we may be doubting God, we may be struggling with faith in general or specifically but we go back and we spend just a moment and maybe we read a song and if we can't read a whole song maybe we read two or three verses of a song.

2:14Maybe we listen to just the reading of the gospels. Whatever it is that brings us back it's the going back it's the consistency of going back and knowing that it's there. He's there and we're not even getting anything from him. Maybe we're not even asking for anything anymore. We're just going back and it reminded me of how many times in my own life that's what I've done with the Bible. I just go back. I don't know what I'm looking for. I don't have a request. I'm not going to be feeling it but I just go back and I read it again and I read another chapter or I read another verse even and sometimes it's as little as that like I don't have much there today but I'm going to just put this foot in front of this one and then see what happens. And some people kind of poo poo that stuff because they go well that's religion and I just that that almost makes me sick when I hear that anymore. It's not religion to keep putting your foot down on solid ground. It's logic. It's not religious and if it is religious then it's the good kind of religious. It's the kind that's pure and undefiled because it's not going back in order to get God to bless you.

3:29It's going back because you have nowhere else to go that is as solid as this place. It's having grown weary with setting your foot on sand and recognizing that maybe you could set your foot on the rock and even though you don't know what you're going to do when you get it there, it feels better. And so I want to just say well first of all to the to the listener. Thank you and it's one of those emails that I think about and want to put thought into a response written response but I want to publicly acknowledge it because it made an impression on me today in a way that I thought was sort of too hard to hide once I started doing a podcast. So I want to acknowledge it out loud but also to say to all of you that it is the reason why when people ask me and I've been asked this question more times than I can count when people ask me what's your advice. I'm going to start a podcast. I'm going to start a YouTube channel. I'm going to I'm going into ministry. What is your advice and my advice 100% of the time no matter what else I say to them. I never don't say the following.

4:40Be consistent. If you start it weekly, do it weekly, if you start it daily, do it daily, don't just randomly throw stuff against the wall. Get in a lane and then keep putting one foot in front of the other because it's that consistency that's going to make somebody come back because they know you'll be there. Again, that email today confirmed to me that that consistency is not only good for my psyche and my personal development and my spiritual journey but also a level of obedience to what I felt the Lord put in my heart when we named it the deeper daily podcast and that it was supposed to go deeper which means that most of the time what we're doing is going deeper into a book or deeper into a subject and then a little deeper the next day. And a little deeper the next day and that kind of for the most part that means books. We do a lot of book studies here, a lot of books of the Bible studies here. And so I'm humbled by it and I'm encouraged by it and I'm fired up by it all over again speaking of going deeper today.

5:48Today we start a new chapter inside of our study of 1st Thessalonians. We finished the 20th verse of chapter 2 yesterday that brings us to chapter 3. Now the interesting thing as you turn into chapter 3 is that this is one of those moments where the translators just did a break just because they they didn't really need a break. It's the same subject that ends chapter 2. In fact, the scripture begins therefore when we could bear it no longer which you know what I'm going to say if there's a therefore see what it's there for. When you start a chapter with therefore it demands you know what's going on. Well what's going on is that Paul wants to wanted to come back and see the Thessalonikans again and again there the hope that the joy of the crown. You are our glory and our hope one therefore when we could bear it no longer we decided to be left alone in Athens and we sent Timothy our brother and coworker for God and proclaiming the gospel of Christ.

6:51To strengthen and encourage you for the sake of your faith so that no one would be shaken by these persecutions that's where the middle of verse 3. So Paul says I wanted to come I couldn't come we stated Athens and instead I sent Timothy Timothy comes back to check on you guys. So you can see how this is really just a part of what was happening at the end of chapter 2. So I want to read out through verse 5 because we don't get Timothy's report of his trip until the fifth verse. So let's continue from the middle of 3. Indeed you yourselves know that this is what we're destined for in fact when we were with you we told you beforehand that we were to suffer persecution so it turned out as you know. For this reason when I could bear it no longer I sent to find out about your faith I was afraid that somehow the tempter had tempted you and that our labor had been in vain. So this is a pastoral concern is Paul saying and heard from you while man I want to get back there I can't get back there I told you you were going to be persecuted I hear you have been persecuted it made me worry that you didn't survive it.

7:54You didn't survive the persecution you gave in you you abandoned the faith and so he sends Timothy to find out now tomorrow we'll move on I know that was a big chunk right well that was just really finishing that previous section. We'll start with verse 6 tomorrow and try to find out what Timothy finds out it's encouraging and it'll read us out most of the way through the rest of the 3rd chapter we'll see you tomorrow God bless.