About a year ago, my wife bought me an anniversary gift that most people would probably consider questionable—a tarantula known as an Orange Bitey Thing.

What started as a fascinating pet led to an unexpected reminder about sin, fear, spiritual warfare, and the victory we have in Christ.

In this episode, I share a few observations from living with one of the world's more infamous spiders and how those observations point to a deeper spiritual reality: the things that destroy us are often more dangerous than we realize, but when we belong to Jesus, we don't have to live in fear.

Jesus didn’t come for the polished, the self-righteous, or the people who think they have everything together. He came for sinners.

In this verse-by-verse teaching through Matthew 9:9–13, we look at the calling of Matthew the tax collector and what it reveals about grace, repentance, freedom, and the love of God. Why would Jesus choose someone society despised? What does that say about us? And what does this passage reveal about how God calls people to Himself?

This episode also explores difficult but important questions about salvation, free will, grace, and the sovereignty of God—not as a debate to win, but as an invitation to better understand the heart of God revealed in Scripture.

At the center of it all is this truth: Jesus came to call sinners. The broken, the rejected, the exiled, and the lost are exactly the people He invites to the table.

Raw. Honest. Scripture-centered. And ultimately rooted in the freedom found in Christ.

What starts as a childhood story about wanting a horse turns into a deeper reflection on temptation, hidden costs, and the deceptive nature of sin. In this episode of the Unshackled Life Podcast, I share a lesson my father taught me years ago: there’s no such thing as a free horse.

The enemy is skilled at making destructive things look harmless, exciting, or worth the price. But beneath every temptation is a cost we often fail to count. This episode explores the reality that sin always brings death and destruction in some form—but also the hope found in Christ, who paid the debt we never could.

Raw, reflective, and grounded in Biblical truth, this episode is a reminder that God’s warnings are not about withholding good from us, but protecting us from counterfeit promises.