KLOVE RADIO FEATURES – AUGUST 2025
THE DAY I BECAME A SLAVE –
I remember the day I became a slave. I remember giving into sin and knew it was wrong. 2 Peter 2:19 says, “…you are a slave to whatever controls you.” I once was preaching at a youth camp. Dozens of teenagers were confessing their sins on an open mic. From the back of the room came a very elderly gray-haired woman weaving her way to the mic. She began in tears, “I was a missionary with my husband in Southeast Asia for 20 years. While there I committed adultery and never told my husband.” The room got deafly quiet. It was a sad and precious moment, as a slave got free, and young people saw something they’d never forget. “…you have been called to live in freedom . . . But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature.” Galatians 5:13
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN “BELIEVING” & TRUSTING
In the mid-1800s, world-famous French tightrope walker Charles Blondin crossed Niagara Falls—1,100 feet long, 160 feet high—many times: blindfolded, on stilts, carrying a stove, even pushing a wheelbarrow. One day, he asked, “Who believes I can carry a man across on my back?” The crowd cheered. Then he asked, “Who will volunteer?” No one moved. Eventually, he carried his manager across. That moment reveals a powerful truth: there are two kinds of faith—faith that works and faith that doesn’t. James 2:19 says, “Even the demons believe—and shudder.” Belief alone isn’t saving faith. The crowd believed in theory, but not enough to trust him with their lives. We often do the same with God—believing He could act but doubting He will. That’s why many stay “always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 3:7).
IF GOD CAN’T PROTECT US, WE CAN’T BE PROTECTED
In 1977, after the Jesus Movement Revival had ended, 75 people still lived in our Christian community—many recovering heroin addicts and paroled inmates. My wife and I, with twin daughters on the way, felt called to pastor there. With no locks on our doors, we lived 4½ years, trusting, “If God can’t protect us, we can’t be protected.” One day, while counseling a burly ex-con in a room attached to our home, he convulsed, sobbed, and confessed to murdering six people—including his uncle, whom he blew through a window with a shotgun. When I urged him to turn himself in, he raged and punched his fist through the sheetrock inches next to my head. My life was threatened many times, but I stood my ground and told him what I’d told others before: “Because of Jesus, you don’t intimidate me.”
SOMEBODY NEEDS TO KILL 50 TURKEYS
A half century ago, my wife and I pastored a live-in Christian Community of 75 people for 4 ½ years. Our salary was $50 a month plus room and board. I did many things I’d not done before or since. Money was short in our community, so the only meat we ate were road kills from Fish and Game. One day, a turkey farm called us and said they had 50 turkeys we could have. The only problem was, they had giant tumors on their bodies. When I picked them up, no one was willing to kill them. So, I, a kid from Brooklyn killed all 50. It was a horrible experience, and I’ve never killed an animal since, but it prepared me for a life of doing the difficult and unexpected. For many years, most of what I commit to do requires the God of the impossible.
WILLING TO DIE FOR LOVED ONES
On July 4th, 1987, at a church picnic right here on Lake Tahoe, I stood with a couple when the father gasped, “Oh, my God!” His 8-year-old daughter was drifting across the lake, clinging to a raft like a sail. He shouted, “Kathryn, Let go of the raft!”—but she kept floating farther. Just the day before, two people had died of hypothermia. I hesitated— “What if I die trying?” Suddenly, her athletic Mom ripped off her sweats and dove in. She was all in. I pulled off my sweatshirt and followed. The freezing water felt like a hundred daggers. Together, we reached Kathryn and got her back. The thought that pushed me in? “I’ll never live with myself if I don’t act.” Afterward, the mother said she wouldn’t have made it without me. Two things hit me: I might be someone’s only hope. Love acts, no matter the cost.
MY MOTHER’S PRAYER
Here’s the prayer my mother prayed for her five children who each got saved. “I claim Francis as God’s purchased possession, in the name of Jesus Christ, on the basis of Your shed blood. I claim the tearing down of all the works of Satan in Francis’s life, all false doctrine, unbelief, temporal values, hatred, resentment, bitterness, and deceitfulness. I claim that each of Francis’s thoughts will be brought into captivity to the obedience of Jesus Christ. I claim the complete deliverance of Francis from the power and persuasion of the devil. I pray that Francis will be brought into submission, and that his conscience will be convicted and brought to the point of repentance. I pray that Francis will hear and believe God’s Word, and that God’s will and purpose will be accomplished in and through Francis’s life. Thank you, Jesus, for hearing and answering my prayer!”