Episodes
-
Ep. 84 - A Scandalous Union
The Core Theme: Rick and Paul explore John 17:20–23, discussing the "thermonuclear" reality of a believer's absolute life union with Christ. Through faith (Greek: pistis), humans bring nothing to the table, yet God grants them His exact glory and oneness. The Parable of the Talents: They reframe...
-
Ep. 83 - Now And Not Yet
In this episode of the Cosmic Car Wash Podcast, Paul and Rick discuss their ongoing journey through the Gospel of John. They dive deep into the context of the Last Supper, focusing on how Jesus fundamentally redefined the Passover tradition into the Lord's Supper while preparing his disciples for...
-
Into The Heart Of The Father
Continuing our slow walk through the gospel of John, we explore how the message of the coming Renewal of All Things (the Palingenesia) impacts the big and little disappointments we all deal with day to day. It changes the way we live and the way we see God. We spend so much time asking for His...
-
The Walk To Emmaus
What a powerful conversation and a revealing look at the heart of our amazing God! Through our exploration of a few stories at the end of the gospel of Luke and the beginning of the gospel of John, in Jesus we encounter the God who delights to surprise us and invite us into the amazing story He's...
-
We're BAAACK!!!
Don't call it a comeback because we never left! We just took time off because life is what happens when you're busy making other plans. Diving in and picking up where we left off, we build off what God has been showing us in our daily devotions through the gospel of Luke. From Jesus weeping...
-
Hot Pursuit
This is exactly the episode we needed to hear. Hopefully you feel the same. John Eldredge said, "We live in a love story set in a world at war." How do we maintain our pursuit of Jesus and His Kingdom in the middle of the war story with which we're all quite familiar? With all these competing...
-
In Him
Starting with Acts 17:28 we go on an exploration of what it means to live, move, have our being, exist, and find our identity in Jesus Christ. Paul borrowed this concept from two, at the time, well known Greek philosophers, Aratus and Cleanthus. Paul realized that Jesus is the integrating force…
more -
Into The Wild
The wilderness. It's often lonely, trying, and humbling. We've all been there in some form or fashion, whether it's estrangement from loved ones, the feeling that God is a million miles away, or just a crisis of faith that pushes us to our soul's breaking point. What can we learn from Moses…
more -
New Year. Same Message.
For the first time in three months we're back in front of the mics. It was a great holiday period (albeit quite busy) but it's so good to come back and talk about the Kingdom of God. It's a new year but the message is the same. Today we talk about developing themes in our walk with God,...
-
He Washed Feet
What is the posture of a servant? There are no volunteers in the Kingdom of God, only servants. A servant is, perhaps more than anything else, available and humble. They don't bristle at service. They don't consider themselves too good for even the most menial task. Being a servant isn't a...
-
Eden Is Inevitable
Our discussion today ranges across a spectrum from the way the Bible continues to amaze us no matter how many times we read these inspired and timeless words to how we long just to be as much with Jesus as is possible. However, where we eventually land is that Eden is inevitable. The story God…
more -
Deserving Or Desiring
Somewhere I heard it said once, "In the end, people don't get what we deserve, we get what we desire." On the face of it, when considering this from the Eden perspective, the Kingdom of God viewpoint, I believe it's a true statement. But as we explore this topic further we realized it isn't so...
-
Cultivating Union With Jesus
The Kingdom of God is not for spectators and the presence of God is not a vacation spot. Similarly, resilience doesn't happen by accident. It's our union with Jesus that restores our humanity and enables us to be a light in the darkness, that shining city on a hill Jesus spoke of. More than...
-
God n' Stuff
Leaning into Jesus as much and as often as we can. Being authentically human. Living our lives like Jesus would if He were us. Jesus' thrilling and imminent return. Join us as we dive into God n' Stuff. We love talking about and living out the Kingdom of God. Of course every day we find ourselves...
-
Where Do We Go
We've each got the particular lives we lead. They include our hobbies, our jobs, our families, friends, vacations, and moments that really matter to us. And of course those look different for everyone. What we explore in this episode is how we are each tempted every single day to go to those…
more -
What Would Job Do
We just finished working our way through the book of Job, one of three books from the Old Testament classified as part of Israel's wisdom literature. Like many before us, and many who will come after us, we have been reflecting on his story. His friends were the worst, God never did explain to…
more -
God In The Details
We often say in church that no problem is too big or small for God, but when it comes to actual practice, we don't think to invite Jesus into our daily routine. Or, if we think about it, we convince ourselves that He doesn't care. Maybe we've heard someone else say to God (or we've said it...
-
The Resiliency of Renewal
Let's be honest, life is a lot to deal with. It has been for as long as we can remember, but especially in the last four or five years it seems like the crazy of the world has been turned up to 11. A lot of time and money are spent on ways to help us find resilience, that ability to get up again...
-
We Belong To God
As has become our style, we just had a conversation the way we do about what to do when you don't know what to do. Rick texted me as he often does just to ask, "How ya doin' friend?" The prophet Daniel wrote that in the last days, the spirit of desolation would come on everyone living on the…
more -
The Unmoved Mover
It was Aristotle who first used the phrase "The Unmoved Mover." (I didn't do the Google search to learn this till after we recorded so please forgive my ignorance during this episode.) God has always been in the background, working everything together for good for everyone who loves him. He's...
-
Open Hands, Still
Of all the episodes we done so far, the one that keeps coming up over and over for us is "Living With Open Hands" from April 11, 2022. So, two years later we thought it was time to revisit the topic. Basically, open hands is a way of saying and showing that we're giving everything to God. No...
-
The Things We Throw Away
Pulling on a thread from our last episode, "Fixed On Eden", today we start with Hebrews 11:40-12:1 and talk about what things we throw away (throw off, cast off...depending on which version of the Bible you're reading) and conversely, what things we embrace. There's numerous examples we can look…
more -
Fixed On Eden
Another entry into the Eden Episodes, today we're talking about what it means to live with the continual expectation that today could be "the day." Jesus said it would be much like it was in Noah's day, as people are going about their ordinary lives, doing what they've always done, He will return...
-
More Warrior Poet Cabbage
Sometimes you just need to do things because it's the right thing to do and not necessarily because it's all planned out from start to finish. Thus we bring you more Warrior Poet cabbage. Catching up with one another, we talk about a range of things from: - Our struggles with duplicity (and God's...
-
Conversations In The Dark
We've all had the experience at some time or other of being awakened in the middle of the night to racing thoughts, worries, fears, and just the general sense that things are not okay. It's more than insomnia, though it could be that too. In the last several years there has been a dramatic rise…
more -
Proximity
"Draw near to God and He will draw near to you." "The nearness of God is my good." These and other verses come from the beating heart of a good, good Father and are reciprocated by men who spent their lives in pursuit of that good heart. But often our lives are so noisy that we don't have the...
-
The Paradise King (Part 1?)
This is the first of what we believe will be a few episodes reviewing and commenting on our new favorite book. If you haven't read The Paradise King by Blaine Eldgredge, do yourself a favor and go buy it immediately and then begin reading it the day you get your hands on it. You can find it on...
-
What's Following You?
Today we start with Psalm 23:6 and David's prayer that God's goodness and mercy would follow him all the days of his life and move further into an exploration of what is following each of us. Since every exploration into scripture leads to deeper and deeper levels of meaning and significance for...
-
Warrior Poet Cabbage
Today we are, as the title hints, just "chewing the cabbage". We find it's good from time to time to just show up to an episode with a survey of what God's been saying to us and what we're hearing from others about the Kingdom of God. We've been sharing, writing, and responding in daily devotions...
-
Committed To The Chase
Dallas Willard taught that we should take Jesus seriously as someone who's life and words we should honestly seek to live out with sincerity and commitment. But being like Jesus feels like a target way out there that's unachievable. However, God isn't looking for people who are perfect but are...
-
Being Eden Outside of Eden
Dang! It's been a while since we sat in our respective chairs, 831 miles apart, to talk about the Kingdom of God. But the minute we hit record, it felt like it had been only minutes. The reason it's been a while is that we both went through some pretty heavy stuff through the month of November....
-
Get Ready. Stay Ready.
Taking our cue from Jesus' parable in Matthew 25:1-14, often called the parable of the 10 virgins or 10 bridesmaids, we explore what it means to have enough oil to make it through the night. This is a disturbing parable that doesn't end with Jesus providing a soft landing or an easy way out. It's...
-
Longing For Eden
We often find ourselves living parallel lives and feeling or meditating on the same things. This week is a perfect example of that. We were both experiencing this longing for Eden that seemed to be heightened more than it has been. Is it wrong for us to look forward to the return of heaven to...
-
Paper Plates or Silver Platters
This episode turned out to be an honest conversation about the struggles we have with typical and topical presentations of something claiming to be the gospel. In reality, those topical presentations convince very few people to alter their lives for God and don’t produce much if any lasting…
more -
What's Yet To Be Left Behind
Picking up where we left off last week in discussing the things we left behind once we discovered the message of Eden and the Great Renewal in the Bible, this week we survey the work we have yet to do in becoming all that God desires us to be. In a way it's kind of a throwback to an earlier…
more -
What We Left Behind
Today we're reflecting on the changes that have taken place in us in the nearly three years since we discovered the message of the Great Renewal. It came to us by way of John and Blaine Eldredge and a series of five episodes from the Wild At Heart podcast they recorded in 2000. You can find those...
-
That's What He Said
After a few week hiatus, we're back today for a relatively impromptu discussion about some things we're learning from the late Dr. Michael S. Heiser (www.youtube.com/@drmsh). We'd heard of Dr. Heiser's work from Dr. Tim Mackie and John Collins, whose own work you can find at...
-
No Kingdom Without A King
All the things that happen in this world as we try to pursue the Eden we were made for! We run after this thing and that person and all the experiences in an attempt to fill the void that only God can fill. But we'll always run up short and wind up disappointed if we try to pursue life outside of...
-
Favorite Verse Friday
With no particular topic bubbling up for us this week, this is a review of a few of our favorite verses (which admittedly feels a bit like deciding between fresh Maine lobster or a perfect medium rare Wagyu filet. You can't go wrong either way.) We start with surveying the context of Matthew…
more -
The Eden Perspective
Asaph is a monumental character from the Old Testament. As the worship leader in the tabernacle and later in Solomon's temple, he excelled at penning his deepest feelings and always rooting them in the confidence that God is good and in control. Psalm 73 is one example of this. Classified as a…
more -
Revisiting Eden
It's been more than two and a half years since we first discovered the message of Eden, the Great Renewal, the Renewal of All Things, the Paligenesia. Whatever you want to call it, it has radically changed our lives. It's brought hope and excitement to our daily lives in a way that religion and...
-
Look, Something Shiny!
Because we don't take ourselves too seriously... What we DO take seriously is the fact that nothing else in life can ever or will ever give us the stability and recovery that Jesus does. But we're all prone to run after shiny objects, the things that distract us from our real source, our real…
more -
Dancing In The Rain
This episode was born out of a desire to keep God as the only one who keeps us steady, holds us firm, sees us through every storm, and makes us unshakeable. Everyone of us fight the tendency to replace God with all sorts of other things. For some it's the toys they hold on to while for others…
more -
Let Your Kingdom Crumb
The account from Matthew 15:21-28 of the gentile woman who approached Jesus asking for Him to deliver her daughter from demonic possession is an amazing story we can all learn from. At first rebuffed by Jesus as a "dog", she persisted saying, "Even dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master's...
-
The Cosmic Car Wash - An Explanation
We originally recorded this in August 2022 but decided to release it now. We explain the name of our podcast, the Cosmic Car Wash, where it came from and why the intentionally ironic name matters a great, great deal for all of us. It comes from the late Dallas Willard who explained that there is…
more -
Mind Control
In Romans 8:6 the Apostle Paul said the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace. We're not scholars or theologians but it makes sense that Jesus, who we know was always totally in sync with His Father and Holy Spirit, was in perfect peace even while He was being tortured and murdered on a...
-
A Wing And A Prayer
Not having had a chance to sync up with one another over the course of the week in order to coalesce around a particular topic, today we are kinda shootin' from the hip, on a wing and a prayer as they say. We start with talking about Bezalel, the man gifted by God to actually build the storied…
more -
Unsinkable Eden
Eden. It isn’t just a garden from antiquity and legend. It’s a place that God creates in each of us when we commit to follow Jesus and those who pursue the God of Eden are absolutely unsinkable. Psalm 37 is among those passages in the Bible that contrast the life of those who follow Jesus with...
-
To Shema Or Not To Shema
The Shema is an ancient Israelite prayer prayed every morning and evening to recommit all of themselves to God: heart, soul, and strength. In Revelation 13 we encounter the dreaded mark of the beast, which Tim Mackie of the Bible Project describes as the anti-Shema. It's not a microchip implanted...
-
God, unfiltered.
We've discussed at length about what heaven is currently like and what it will be like when they are fully reunited again, when Jesus returns and makes everything new. But Jesus spoke very clearly during His earthly ministry about those who don't want God to rule over them. If we find ourselves...
About this show
This is a podcast about the Kingdom of God!
Hosted by
Paul & Rick
Categories