Who Is Jesus? | Journeying with Him Through Scripture (Part 2 of 2)

What if Jesus’ question to the man at Bethesda is far less obvious than it sounds? “Would you like to get well?” feels almost unnecessary when addressed to a man who has been disabled for thirty-eight years. Yet Bible teacher Stephanie Rousselle invites us to linger there, because Jesus is never careless with a question. He is reaching beneath the man’s circumstances to the deeper places where disappointment, identity, self-reliance, and hope have become tangled together. Stephanie brings listeners into the sensory world of John 5 and the Pool of Bethesda, a place crowded with sickness, longing, superstition, and the exhausting hope that perhaps this time the water might finally deliver. The man has spent decades looking toward the pool. Jesus arrives and redirects his gaze toward a Person. The contrast is striking: dead water cannot give life, yet Jesus speaks a command that carries within it the power to obey. “Get up, pick up your mat, and walk.” The episode explores the strange ways we can become attached to the identities formed by our wounds. Healing may require receiving a new story about who we are, admitting that our own strategies cannot save us, and allowing Jesus to define what wholeness looks like. Stephanie also notices the man’s response: instead of a clean declaration of desire, he offers an explanation of why healing has remained impossible. How often do we do the same? This is an invitation to bring our well-worn impossibilities to Christ and hear his question personally. Where have we kept staring at the water, waiting for circumstances to change, while Jesus himself stands before us? The passage becomes a doorway into grace: the One who asks the question is also the One with authority to make us whole. Support us on Gospel Spice, PayPal and Venmo!

What happens when we’ve prayed, parented, sought counsel, tried to do everything faithfully—and our child still walks away? In this deeply personal conversation, Stephanie welcomes Bible teacher and author Erica Wiggenhorn to talk about Loving Your Wayward Child, a book born from Erica’s own painful experience of loving a son through seasons of turmoil and even complete separation. Together, Stephanie and Erica explore a particularly painful kind of grief: mourning someone who is still very much alive, while never knowing what tomorrow may bring. Erica describes how fear can quietly move us toward isolation, fixation, manipulation, or simply trying to escape the pain. She also challenges the “formulaic Christianity” many of us absorbed—the assumption that if we parent faithfully enough, our children will inevitably make the choices we hoped they would. But Scripture offers something far deeper than a formula. From the prodigal son to Cain, Erica traces the presence of a God who remains at work beyond what a parent can see or control. Our children may move beyond our reach, but they never move beyond his. This conversation makes room for grief without surrendering hope, and for honest questions without abandoning faith. Ultimately, it invites us to entrust both our children and our own wounded hearts to the God who knows the end of the story—and who is tenderly present while we wait. MORE ABOUT “LOVING YOUR WAYWARD CHILD” https://ericawiggenhorn.com/lovingyourwaywardchild For the Mom Who's Been Up Since 3 a.m. You’ve read the books. You’ve listened to the podcasts. You’ve prayed until you ran out of words. And your child is still walking away. You’re terrified of saying the wrong thing—so you say nothing. You feel like a failure, but you can’t admit that to anyone. Other Christians assume you must have done something wrong. You haven’t. And you’re not alone. Most books about wayward children are written after the happy ending. This one isn’t. Erica Wiggenhorn wrote Loving Your Wayward Child while still in the trenches—not knowing how her own story would turn out. This is not a parenting advice book. You’ve already poured out every last drop of your parenting heart. This is a lifeline for your heart—biblical perspective, emotional tools, and practical strategies to help you stay spiritually grounded, emotionally healthy, and relationally connected to your child when both connections feel impossible. This book will help you: · Stay anchored in faith when hope feels foolish · Recognize the four default reactions that keep you stuck · Receive courage to make bids for connection– even if you’re afraid your child won’t respond · Process grief, fear, and shame without drowning in them · Build practical daily habits that sustain you for the long haul MORE ABOUT ‘MOMENTUM” https://ericawiggenhorn.com/momentum/ Your child is going their own way, in a direction you would never choose, leading to disruption and separation in your relationship. But what if you found a new pathway for connection, where you could both move forward, together? The Momentum Conference provides a safe place to rest, remember you’re not alone and receive tools and perspective empowering you to stand strong in faith and pursue healthy connection with your child. God is for you, for your family — and together we can cling to His promises and find hope. What is the Momentum Conference? Momentum is a Friday night through Sunday morning getaway with a balance of biblical teaching, practical help, group connection and time to pursue individual rest. The weekend schedule has been designed to lavish love, impart resources and provide hope to moms who are walking a hard road with their teens, young adult, or adult children. Freedom to pursue preferential activities provided by the resort promises a time of rejuvenation as well as a mental, emotional and spiritual reset. MORE ABOUT ERICA WIGGENHORN Erica Wiggenhorn is a Bible teacher, author, and Proverbs 31 Ministries wr

Some truths can be taught. Others must be lived. Today, Stephanie welcomes Kirby Kelly to discuss the path to confident hope when life is just too much to handle. When Kirby Kelly was fourteen years old, Jesus stepped into her life, which was marked by addiction, loss, grief, and instability. Her father died from alcoholism. Her mother struggled with addiction for years. Pain was not an abstract theological category; it was the landscape of her childhood. Yet what emerges from Kirby's story is not a testimony about suffering. It’s a testimony about God. In this deeply personal conversation, Kirby shares how the Lord has spent years revealing himself as Father, Comforter, Redeemer, and Hope. Drawing from her new book, The Fabric of Hope, she reflects on the surprising ways God weaves redemption through even the most painful chapters of life. Kirby describes becoming a mother herself. In the exhaustion of postpartum depression, grief over her mother's death, sleepless nights, and overwhelming uncertainty, she found herself returning to the very truths she had written about. What had once been theology became experience. What had once been doctrine became comfort. Can God really redeem suffering? Kirby's answer is not theoretical. It is rooted in a lifetime of watching God transform wounds into testimonies, grief into compassion, and brokenness into ministry. She shares how her mother's addiction eventually became the doorway through which she repeatedly shared the gospel, ultimately witnessing her mother's surrender to Christ. This conversation is an invitation to remember. To remember the God who has been faithful before. To remember the God who comforts like a mother and protects like a father. To remember that even when we cannot see what he is doing, he is never absent. Our story is not ultimately about pain. It is about the God who redeems it. MORE ABOUT KIRBY KELLY Kirby Kelly is a speaker, author, podcast host, and content creator based in Dallas, Texas, who has spent over a decade using digital platforms to equip, empower, and engage a global audience with the truth of the Gospel. With a B.A. in Communication and Biblical Studies from Dallas Baptist University and an M.A. in Theology, Kirby has built a ministry that blends theological depth with cultural relevance. Her online presence spans Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and her podcast Bought + Beloved, where she helps listeners and viewers deepen their love for God and knowledge of the Word. Kirby has authored two books with W Publishing: You Can Be Free and The Fabric of Hope. From everyday evangelism to her online uploads, Kirby hopes to see this generation live saved, set free, and sent forth in their unique God-given calling. MORE ABOUT “THE FABRIC OF HOPE” Could God be interrupting your life with hope in the middle of your hardest seasons, stitching meaning into every square inch of the fabric of your story? Kirby Kelly wants to help you find the worth in what seemed like a waste, sweetness to what was once a bitter taste, purpose to your pain, glory to your shame, and relief from the strain of your burdens. Life has not dealt anyone an easy hand, no matter what we see on social media. We all have our scars and stories, our lemons and our laments. But something delightful, refreshing, and sweet can come out of the hardest seasons when viewed through the lens of God's redemptive plan that is woven throughout the biblical narrative and your individual story. He is the thread that stitches torn things back together making beauty that is worth trusting even when you're still in the thick of the process. In The Fabric of Hope, Kirby Kelly walks you through her own patchwork life with its unexpected love story, the sudden loss of her mom in the shadow of her graduation and Mother's Day, battling doubt, a family legacy of addiction, and betrayal to finding calling and purpose and synchronicity in God's design to show you the greater story God was stitching together. By show

We’re all living inside stories. The strange thing is, most of the time we don’t know they’re stories. “You do you.” “Follow your heart.” “Live free.” “Truth is relative.” They can feel less like cultural assumptions and more like oxygen—simply the way things are. In this conversation, Stephanie sits down with Michael Keller, senior pastor of Redeemer Lincoln Square in New York City and son of the late Tim Keller, to ask what happens when we begin noticing the water we’re swimming in. They discuss the book Tim Keller co-authored with Michael before passing. Michael and his father began working together on a book exploring these cultural narratives before Tim’s death in 2023. What emerged became something more personal for Michael than he expected. They talk about identity that is received rather than achieved, why our culture’s vision of freedom may leave us lonelier rather than freer, and what happens when love slowly becomes synonymous with affirmation. And then the conversation gets tender. Michael shares what it meant to work among his father’s words after losing the man himself, and what he discovered about grief, fatherhood, and finding in Christ what death seems to have taken away. Stephanie and Michael come at that question from very different experiences with their earthly fathers, yet somehow arrive in the same place: Jesus. They also explore Tim Keller’s much-discussed approach to culture, which some have labeled as "third way-ism." Michael explains why “affirm, critique, redirect” isn’t an attempt to find a comfortable middle between opposing sides. The gospel stands somewhere else altogether, exposing what is broken while recognizing echoes of goodness and redirecting our longings toward Christ. So perhaps the question isn’t simply whether we believe the gospel. What stories are we actually living as though they were true? MORE ABOUT DR. TIM KELLER Timothy J. Keller (1950–2023) was the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, cofounder of Redeemer City to City, and the author of numerous books, including The Reason for God, The Prodigal God, and The Meaning of Marriage. His thirty-one books have sold over six million copies and have been translated into twenty-nine languages. MORE ABOUT DR. MICHAEL KELLER Dr. Michael Keller is the senior pastor of Redeemer Lincoln Square in New York City, a church he planted with his wife, Sara, in 2017. He grew up in New York as the son of the late pastor, author, and apologist Tim Keller, watching his parents plant Redeemer Presbyterian Church beginning in 1989. Michael earned his undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt University and later received an M.Div. and a Th.M. in Apologetics, magna cum laude, from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He also holds a Ph.D. from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, where his work brought computational linguistics into conversation with historical theology. Before planting Redeemer Lincoln Square, Michael served in ministry in London, Queens, and Boston and helped establish an urban Reformed University Fellowship ministry in New York City. MORE ABOUT “THE STORIES WE LIVE BY” by TIM KELLER AND MICHAEL KELLER We are the stories we believe. But what if our culture's stories are failing us? The Stories We Live By reveals the hidden cultural narratives that shape us and points the way to the life we've been looking for. "Do what makes you happy." "Be true to yourself." "Live free." If these slogans promise the good life, why do they so often leave us feeling hollow and empty? Could the very stories our modern world tells us about happiness, freedom, and identity be the source of our growing anxiety and disillusionment? The culmination of a journey Michael Keller began with his father, beloved pastor and bestselling author Timothy Keller, before his passing, The Stories We Live By unmasks the hidden cultural narratives that shape our lives, often without our knowledge. Examining seven dominant narratives of modern culture--conce

To awaken our delight in God means not striving harder, but returning—again and again—to the garden of God’s presence. There, rooted in His unwavering delight for us, we cultivate practices that transform both us and those around us for His glory. In this closing episode of our Awaken Delight series, Stephanie explores explore the core themes of awakening delight in God—what it looks like, why it matters, and how we can cultivate it as our spiritual reality. You are invited to purchase Stephanie’s book on this topic, Awaken Delight, here: https://a.co/d/0625K1AZ Stephanie Rousselle opens by reflecting on her early Christian days at a Parisian church, noticing how fellow believers exuded a love and delight in the Lord that initially felt foreign yet deeply compelling. This spiritual delight, she observes, stems not from duty, but from truly tasting and seeing God’s goodness (Psalm 37:4). She encourages us to pursue not just knowledge of God, but a transformative, experiential joy in His presence. Throughout the series, Stephanie introduced ten common spiritual struggles. Which ones do you relate to? Are you… Spiritually exhausted, faith dulled by life’s demands, longing for rest deeper than sleep? Intellectually driven, disconnected from the living presence of Jesus? Facing chronic physical pain, learning to believe through suffering? Battling mental oppression, struggling to feel God’s presence despite knowing His promises? Enduring spiritual dryness, persisting out of stubborn faith? Grappling with profound grief, finding grace in the midst of loss? Seeking reconciliation after conflict with loved ones? An achiever whose identity is tangled in performance, avoiding vulnerability? Losing the centrality of Jesus amidst your Christian routines? Trapped in spiritual habits that have become legalistic, losing wonder and enjoyment? Each of us may relate to one or more of these journeys. Which character sounds most like your current season? Many of us embody more than one. Our FREE gift to you today! An exclusive prayer as we wrap up our series, to rekindle your delight in God: go to https://www.gospelspice.com/awakendelightthepodcast and find the form for Episode 464. Give us your email, and you will receive the full prayer in your inbox immediately! We’ve all experienced the universal hunger for spiritual delight, which can be found in Christ alone. Towards that end, Stephanie introduces the metaphor of the garden—a symbol of paradise in biblical tradition. The garden has various areas, all representing a particular spiritual discipline rooted in Jesus: Hidden benches and ponds: Silence, solitude, meditation—habits growing our identity in God. We are created as “imago Dei” dust: both gloriously made in God's image and profoundly humble in our origins. Embracing this paradox breeds humility—knowing our worth and brokenness—and freedom—living authentically in Christ. When we remember whose delight defines us, we are freed from chasing identity in performance, approval, or escapism. Pergolas and open spaces: Service, fellowship, missions—habits shaping our purpose alongside others. Hospitality, service, discipleship—rooted in purpose and love for others. Delight begets delight. As we root our lives in God’s delight over us, we are empowered to reflect that joy to others—making space for them to experience God and closing the loop of love and worship. Flowers and fruit trees: Gratitude, creativity, lament, and stewardship—blending personal and communal practices. Gratitude, simplicity, lament, suffering, fasting—individual and communal practices. Your core identity is this: God delights in you. Awaken to his love, and let your life become a fruitful, joyful garden of intimacy with Jesus—bearing delight for yourself and for others. Anchors: Bible study as a meadow, prayer as a greenhouse, worship as fountains. God invites us to co-cultivate this garden, discovering new spiritual “flavors” over a lifetime. Brook of Living Water: Jesus