Your Best Life Now Board Game

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, ministry.

Pastor Steve Cooley, the most humble man I know. Hmm. All I can say is meet more people. You don�t get out much, my father would say. Yeah, exactly right. Steve, once again, it happens, it�s happened to me once, twice.

Sold. Yeah, sold. I was in Memphis for the Contend 2015 conference. Lots of really neat young people there, both high school students and college students, and then mothers and fathers, youth group leaders would drive them to the conference and sit in on the conference, and often and regularly, after someone would tell me they listen to No Compromise Radio.

Guess what the next statement out of their mouth was? What�s up with your hair? No, the next comment was, where�s Tuesday guy? So there is a movement. It�s growing. It�s brewing. It�s percolating. And No Compromise Radio is just something missing without Steve on Tuesday.

So I�m glad you�re back in the study here in the studio, and it is Tuesday.

Well, you know what I find is that typically when people only listen to you once in a while, they love you. That�s right. If I was the Monday through Friday guy, you know, if that was on my t-shirt, �Monday through Friday guy then it�d be like, who cares?

Who�s the Monday through Friday guy?

Now, I tried to get you to do Tuesday guy on Saturdays. Yeah. But you�re a grandpa. You got all kinds of stuff going on on Saturdays. Yeah, I do.

I mean, we see the grandkids actually quite a bit. Monday, it wasn�t a random showing up. It was just one where grandma forgot that they were coming over. So all of a sudden, we�re like, oh, hi. Hello.

The hello movement is growing. I think we�re going to need to. It�s bubbling. It�s percolating. It is. It is, but you have to say percolating.

It�s another Nebraska thing.

Well, for those of you that don�t know, my grandmother would answer the phone. She was blind in her older age, and she, I don�t know, she just didn�t pronounce things correctly all the time, and that has nothing to do with her blindness.

And instead of answering the phone, hello, she�d answer the phone, hello. And so, you know, when somebody does something weird, they say hello, and then we just say hello.

That�s the no-co way. I think it�s some kind of Nordic deal. Nordic track. Yeah.

We say hello. Steve, as you know, we are co-labors with Erin Benziger with Equipping Eve Ministries. She has a podcast that�s on the feed here for No Compromise Radio. She also writes a really great blog, Do Not Be Surprised.

And she sent us some gifts. And so That�s so nice of her. I know. I got a coffee mug that has Jeremiah 29 taken out of context. I have a bottle of, an empty bottle that I filled with water, and it has the Pope on the front, Pope Francis.

And so, after a few Hail Marys and a few Our Fathers, I think it�s now blessed. Yeah. I thought about rubbing it on some of the microphones here on No Compromise Radio, and that would help us with our, I don�t know, Thomas Aquinas

By shorting out the microphones? Yeah, yeah. Thomas Aquinas quotes would flow freely.

That will never happen. First of all, I�d have to understand what he was babbling about.

And then she sent us a box. And Steve, and this is true, is going to open the box on the air because it�s in its wrapping paper. And you�re going to hear that right now. And this is If it wasn�t wrapped, could I do this?

Uh-huh. And so now he�s opened it up. It�s a box by about 14 inches. By 14 inches. It�s square. It�s about three inches deep.

And Steve, it�s all yours. This is the best gift I�ve never received. I know. It�s the Your Best Life Now, The Game, inspired by the number one New York Times bestseller with a big, smiling, kind of creepy picture of Joel Osteen in it.

Now, here�s the thing, Steve.

It�s not for kids, though, is it? It�s toxic for kids because it�s ages 16 and up.

Ages 16 to adults for two to six. Now, what is that? That, you know, it�s not child-friendly.

Do not give this to your kids. Yeah, Steve, if you�d open up that hermetically sealed deal there. I love this because our listeners maybe don�t know that. Steve is an aficionado of board games and has won some, I think, national tournaments for Diplomacy, The Game, right?

Have you?

I won one sort of national thing. I do okay.

You know, I�m world-ranked. Yeah, okay. So, Steve�s opened this up, and we might just have to take the seven steps to living to your full potential. Now, this is a nice board. Okay.

Steve just said... I�m holding an envelope over my head.

I am not kidding you. There�s a board that he opened up, and the first little piece of paper inside, you know, there�s all kinds of different cards and stuff like that, and it�s got an envelope, and it says �My Miracle� on it.

I guess this is for people who find reading too hard. So, you know, if you can�t struggle your way through the book, either that or maybe you just love the book so much that you just don�t want to let it go.

And it says �My Miracle� on both sides of this envelope, and then when I open up, as Steve�s getting the board game up, there�s some notes, you know, you need to keep score and all that kind of stuff.

�Your Best Life Now�, the game, �My Immediate Goal Is�, and then it�s got a blank space, and then it says, �I Promise to Help Reach Your Goal By. So, you�re helping each other out.

Word-Faith Theology and the Game's Positive Thinking

Okay, now listen to this. This is how you start on today, which is, I guess, a fine place to start. Yeah, it comes with a little cheesy mirror.

It comes with a mirror so you can do the Stuart Smalley. How about this?

You start on today, and by the way, this is on endless games, which for me is a problem, because I don�t want to play an endless game. But anyway, it starts on today, and then the first place that you can go to after you skip one, two, three, four, five, six spaces is �Enlarge Your Vision.

Oh, see. And then the second piece is �Develop a Healthy Self-Image. So key. And you know what? I would actually agree with that. Develop a healthy self-image, and a healthy one would be a correct one.

So, I need to understand that I am a sinner in need of the grace of God, and that would be good. The next one isn't so good. �Discover the Power of Your Thoughts and Words. Now, the power is to entrap me in sin if I give in to my thoughts.

�Let Go of the Past.

Oh, let it go. Now, Steve, something's happening here. You're not doing the game properly. You're already cheating. You're supposed to take this little sand timer. And you flip it upside down. And then now you have about 30 seconds to make a snarky comment.

Oh, snarkism. Okay. So, before Steve looks at the board anymore, we're looking at the Osteen game. This is terrible. And there's a bunch of cards.

And these cards... Yeah, I mean, seriously, you could have designed this board in about 15 seconds. Whoever designed this thing, this is lame. I like the kind of mountain. It looks like K2. Well, it makes me just want to go and do climb every mountain.

This is a Sound of Music board game. Oh, yeah, that's right.

So, Steve, in this particular card, this is number three. Discover the power of your thoughts and words. So, I'm just going to flip it over and see what we get. Okay. Okay. Sadness, pretensions, and torture.

So, you know, if you talk about sadness, you'll become sad. If you have pretensions, I think you're... You become pretentious. Yes, yes. If you think about torture... You'll get tortured. Yes, but I have to tell you...

You're heading for Gitmo. Let's talk about this in all candor. This kind of word faith theology and name it and claim it and grab it and blab it and whatever we want to call it. It's blab it and grab it.

Is it blab it and grab it? Yeah, to be technical. I flipped it around. Well, you know what? You lose back up three spaces. Roll again.

Hey, listen, in this game, anytime you back up, you're losing. Let's do another one.

Discover the power of your thoughts. Words criticize, dislike, and battle. See, I know there's a theme here. Disconcerting, ruthless, and insipid.

Which is an excellent word when it comes to Joel Osteen.

Okay, so this is three words that describe Mike and Steve's response to the game. Disaster. Stressful. Rejection. Rejection. Reject. So, Aaron, thank you for this gift. It's helped us to get a few little pencils there.

I think these pencils were made in Best Life Now countries or something. Probably under the squalor.

Oh, dude. Yeah, we don't even want to know where it was made. You know.

But I'm going to use... Steve can have this game and take it home because I'm generous. But I get the pad. Because I'm going to promise to help you reach your goal. This is going to be our no-co-pad right here.

Seeking the Kingdom Instead of Prosperity

All right. So, in all honesty, you think about the cross of Jesus Christ. And there is prospering for New Testament Christians. But we're talking about spiritual prospering. Of course, everybody during the new year wants to talk about, have a happy new year, a prosperous new year.

And so, when Paul is in jail, he's prospering. When Stephen is getting stoned to death, he's prospering. According to the word faith proponents and advocates, I don't know what their answer would be, but I could just about guess.

And so, let's just get back to the essential things, the Lord Jesus Christ. And you should see Steve's face right now. I'm trying to talk over his face, but I can't do it.

Well, don't try to talk over my face because you'll probably say a negative word. Listen, I'm reading, I'm looking at this rule book. This is like, this isn't even a game. I mean, this, seriously, this is not a game.

If you read these rules, you would have absolutely no idea what to do.

No wonder it was a bestseller. So, is it kind of like numerology? You take the word crestfallen and see over here, then you have to say with the C, you can make the word caring. With the R, you can make the word trust because you put the T in front of the R.

That is so cool.

Yeah. Yeah, play is against the timer. Players have 15 seconds to list a minimum of three positive words.

Oh, so you have to try to think of positive words because words are containers.

With the word faith theology. So, like for the E in crestfallen, I'd say hell. That's a positive word because I want to, I don't want to know how to possibly escape hell. I want to know how to escape hell.

See? That would be another use for E, escape.

So, when it comes to board games, we're not against them. You know, Steve, there were some people criticizing me online because I promote carnal NFL games. Do you? Yeah, guess how many NFL games I've watched this year?

I'm going to have to go 172. Yeah, that would be incorrect.

Move back four spaces. 168. I've watched zero games. Probably in an airport, I saw, you know, somebody. I think that was Bart Starr throwing a touchdown to Max McGee or something.

I must confess that sometimes I turn on the NFL on Sunday afternoons because for one particular reason, I want to take a nap. See?

There you go. And then I also do ungodly things like take church groups to the beach.

Yeah, you can't do that.

Yeah, that would be bad. That'd be like taking them to like Niagara Falls or something.

Now, if you're going to a mountain retreat where you're, you know, where you're going to focus on, you know, this kind of thing, ascending the mountain and, you know, getting to your best life now, that would be acceptable.

Chilly, isolated, avalanche. Everything's in three. Your best life now. Boy, that is awful. Aaron Benzinger, thank you so much. We appreciate that you're...

Always thinking of us. Ministry. She's a co-laborer. Yeah. Yeah, okay. I'm hoping she paid more in postage than she did for the game.

Because it is a 10-year-old game. How about, let me just give you one verse from the scriptures. Jesus said this, and it wipes out all word, faith, theology in one single verse. Are you ready? Yeah.

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

But you can't seek the kingdom of God unless you know that you're worthy of the kingdom of God. Hmm. Therefore, I tell you.

The Sufficiency of Scripture over Extra Revelation

All right, Steve, let's talk about a few other things that are here on our No Compromise studio desk. Let's get rid of this little thing right here. Jesus Calling is a book, of course, and it's a runaway bestseller.

2013 Evangelical something or other big seller, big prize, big award, Best Life Now deal. Is that going to be a board game too? It should be. Seriously, Steve, it is a calendar. It is a devotional, a devotional Bible.

You too can be a New Age channeler just like she is and was. But she has a Twitter feed too. She meaning Jesus Calling book. It's at Jesus underscore calling. And here's what it says today. And I thought this was very apropos.

Dear Jesus, I want to see your glory. Please give me discerning eyes.

Hmm, that's really deep. Hashtag dear Jesus.

Now, isn't it true, Steve, that the scriptures are sufficient? They're not deficient. So, why do we need the Sarah Young's Jesus Calling with extra revelation from Jesus? Pick up a paper, pick up a pen, and when you hear things, just begin to write them down.

Maybe Jesus said them. I have no idea, but I want to exegete what she said here.

Okay, please do, because that's part of the show. That's why we charge for downloads.

Dear Jesus, that part is self-evident, okay? The next part is kind of interesting to me. I want to see your glory. Well, what does that mean? You know, like when Moses wanted to see the glory of God, is that what she's asking for?

She needs to see the brightness of his person. Is that, you know, and then he's going to say to her, Sarah, listen to me. Hide yourself in that rock and I'm going to pass by you and you'll only be allowed to see my high part, in other words, the lesser part of my glory.

Afterglow. Yeah. So, that's kind of, is that what she's after? I don't think that's what she's after. What she really wants, when she says, I want to see your glory, she doesn't want to see Christ exalted.

What she wants to see, or what, she doesn't want to see anything. What she wants to feel is that kind of sense of belonging and being loved.

Steve, while we are not mind readers, it seems to me. Speak for yourself. In my opinion, so you don't get sued, right? In my opinion, it's, I want to feel your glory. Yeah. Maybe it's not Sarah, but a lot of these kind of charismatics, it's a feeling-oriented, I want to experience your glory.

I don't want to read about it in some dusty old book back in Genesis, Mount Sinai. There's too many rocks and tumbleweeds around Sinai for my liking, allegedly.

Yeah, I want to see your glory. Well, you know, if you want to see the glory of Jesus, there's one way to do that, and that is to be a believer in Christ, believe in his life, death, resurrection, and trust in it alone, and then die.

And then guess what? You'll see the glory of Jesus because you'll be where he is, you know? But until then, you're going to have to deal with what he has given us, which is not only sufficient, but is glorious.

The Word of God is inspired, it is all that we need, and, you know, but that's not enough for Sarah Young and Jesus Calling. I was thinking about it, even when you started talking about it, and we're talking about board games, and I thought about a game I hadn't thought about for many, many years.

Remember this one? Open the door for your mystery date. It was geared towards young girls, and I'm going, this is Jesus Calling. She wants to open the door for her mystery date, and her mystery date, she thinks, is Jesus.

Well, often we will idolize things and people or create Jesuses that aren't really Jesus, they're just made up in our own minds, an idol after our own choosing. Jesus is extra loving, he's extra handsome, he's extra close to us, and all these kind of weird things that are outside of scripture.

Friends, if you think about God in unscriptural terms, it's the wrong God.

Jesus is not the fulfillment of your romantic sensibilities, that is not what he is.

Yes, but Steve, you're married for many years, and if you just talk to your wife and she never talked back to you, that would be no relationship. And so, when you pray you're talking to God, he must talk back to you outside of his word or it's no relationship, friend.

If God talks back to me outside of scripture, I think it's problematic. I'd be very concerned if I started hearing voices.

I hear voices. Steve, if you said to yourself, all right, let's just say God still speaks outside of his word, audibly, you know, with decibels, you could record it with your iPhone type of thing or your Android, whatever you've got.

And if he were to speak to people, do you think he'd speak to people who really have bad anthropology, bad soteriology, bad eschatology, bad bibliology? Wouldn't he speak to someone who knew the Bible pretty well?

That would be my guess.

It would be my guess as well. And if we look at scripture, generally what he did was he spoke through men and worked through men, not women, you know, unless, well, almost exclusively, unless there were really sad times.

I mean, you can make an argument for Deborah or whatever, but that wasn't so much a prophetic thing. So, I think we would see something different than Sarah Young, that's for sure.

Steve, in Exodus chapter 33, God and Moses are speaking. Moses said, please show me your glory. And God said, this is fascinating to me, I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name, the Lord.

I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy, but you cannot see my face for man shall not see me and live. And so, God hides Moses so he's not disintegrated.

And then he says, you want to know the essence of my goodness? It's that I'm utterly sovereign and I distinguish between people. And so, why are the charismatics, or many of them, at least the extreme ones, so un-Calvinistic, that is to say, they don't believe in the sovereignty of God where the essence of the glory of God, God himself says in Exodus 33, I'm sovereign.

I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. And what's so hard to understand about that? Nothing except it's not what we like to hear.

Pete. But Steve, we like to pick things, right? You love to go to the ungodly beaches and, you know, your favorite beach is probably Long Sands Beach in New York, Maine. And you love to pick your own football teams.

You love the, you know, USC Trojans, you know, the college team, you pick and choose. I'm mad that you get to pick and choose based on your own….

Pete No, you're mad because they beat the Huskers. Pete If they would have had two more minutes, it might have been a different story. Pete Yeah, well, they didn't and USC knew that, so…. Pete Oh, they did.

They planned it.

Pete Yeah, they did. Pete Well, we'll get you next year. Pete But anyway, don't we pick and choose and so what we love in ourselves, sometimes we don't love so much in God.

Pete Yeah, we want to deny that to God because he shouldn't choose. He should be indiscriminate, right? Pete Unconditional love. Yeah, he just loves everybody and he just hopes that people will love him back.

Pete. One potato, two potato? Or is that eeny, meeny, miny, moe? Is that he loves me, he loves me not?

Pete. He just, you know, he's just all about love.

Pete Steve, tell the folks here about some of the stuff that's going on at the church in case there's some local listeners, what they might expect in Sunday school that you teach.

Pete Well, we recently completed a series about the man Christ Jesus, a book by Bruce Ware and I just taught through that and I'm going to start a series called, you know, I don't know, I'm kicking around the titles, but, you know, The Meaning of Life, which I thought, well, there's a nice narrow, you know.

Pete It's perfect because then you can talk.

About whatever you want, basically. Pete. You know, it's a rough week, lots of trouble.

Pete. No, it's just, it's going to be focused on the value of life and how we ought to view it. You know, if God creates something, how should we view that? And, you know, there is kind of a hierarchy of life and if we look at it, if we look at the world through pagan eyes, we'd say, well, you know, a mouse is just as important as a person.

How can they do that, you know, the chemical things to mice or, you know, anyway, it's going to deal with all kinds of, I think, ethical issues. How should we view our stewardship? You know, what does it mean to be an image bearer?

All those kind of things.

Pete. All right. Is there going to be a game associated with it?

Pete Yes, but everybody loses.

Pete Well, it's interesting with the Best Life Now game, your Best Life Now. Pete No, it's not my Best Life Now. Pete It's from two to six players. Pete Yeah. Pete What if there's a larger group?

Don't we need one for the church? Pete. Well, that's in the appendices. There's team play.

Pete. Oh, okay. I thought it was also used as some Frisbee discus. Pete. I don't know. I can't. Pete. Poor Erin. How much money did she spend on shipping?

Pete Yeah, I don't know. I mean, this is just, I hope it's a tax write off. Pete. Oh, do you know what? It probably is. It's ministry related.

Pete Yeah. Pete All right. So if you'd like to listen to NoCo Radio, there's a variety of ways you could do it. You know what we'd ask, in all honesty? Why don't you tell your friends? You know, we don't want to beg for money.

We don't do that at the show. But I would ask you to tell your friends, hey, check this show out. In no time, they'll offend you. And they'll act in such a way that you'll have to tune in next time to see what they'll say that you don't like.

Pete To see what the new offense is. So sometimes, you know, you watch shows and you're like, that guy gets under my skin. I better watch him again. Pete I usually don't. Pete And so you can listen at bbcchurch .org to Pastor C's messages, both Sunday School and preaching sermons.

You can go to NoCompromiseRadio .com, iTunes. We're on Worldview Weekend as well. Just a variety of places. We're thankful for what the Lord has done through a couple guys like us. He still magnifies his word, and we're thankful for that.

Pete And starting this Sunday, Malachi. Pete Malachi is this Sunday, starting with the elective love of God. Pete Smoking.

Pete No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible-teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.