From the Blog
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Growing Up Together
Would you say you are living a fulfilled life? What does that even look like? Is maturity just growing old? Or is there a target to our growing up? What is the aim of your life? If you spent the rest of your life doing what you are doing on a weekly basis, will you look back and say you were fulfilled?
Paul taught the church in Ephesus that Jesus equipped his church with all of the gifts they would need to grow together to spiritual maturity. We can grow together to spiritual maturity. -
Doing Life Together
From the very beginning God saw our need for relationship. First the vertical relationship with Him and then the horizontal relationship with one another. We not only do life better together, we are simply built for it.
The last year and a half has exposed this reality as well as any other season in recent history. We spent a great deal of time isolated and even some of the introverts were missing people. The truth is we need God and we need one another. We are created for relationship. We were made to love God and one another. We were made to do life together! -
To Faithfully Respond to Jesus
Will you faithfully respond to the priestly sacrifice of Jesus? And church let me ask you, would you say you’ve had a faithful response to the knowledge and belief that Jesus is the sacrifice for all sins and that he is now your great priest in heaven? Do you know what it means to faithfully respond to Jesus in this way? Because the danger here is if you don’t know what it means to faithfully respond to this news then you're in danger of living out your Christian life feeling distant from God, wavering in your faith, and blocking out the needs of your fellow believers.
In chapter 10 of Hebrews, the author encouraged the Jewish Christians to faithfully respond to the Priestly Sacrifice of Jesus. We can faithfully respond to the Priestly Sacrifice of Jesus. -
A Revealing Light
In the second chapter of Luke’s gospel, he described the prophecy of Simeon that Jesus was the revealing light exposing the hearts of all mankind. We can believe that Jesus is the light which reveals all hearts. His truth divides the hearts of mankind.
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Yes I Will
Making fun of 2020 has been just about the only way to survive this for many of us. It has felt like we are playing a weird game of apocalypse bingo. There has been so much to complain about, worry about, be angry about, and this is just on a national level. Some of our personal battles have been just as difficult if not worse. For so many of us there has been little that we are thankful for. We may have celebrated thanksgiving, but have we found our attitude and heart of gratitude?
In Psalm 9, David wrote of how he chose to worship God in every circumstance. We can choose to worship God in every circumstance. -
A Letter Against Tolerance
Is tolerance automatically a bad thing? Should we tolerate some things and stand firm on others? How do we come to a biblical understanding of tolerance?
In his letter to the church in Thyatira, Jesus commanded them to hold fast to His truth in the face of excessive tolerance. We can hold fast to God’s truth in the face of excessive tolerance. -
A Letter on First Love
Jesus wrote a letter to His churches. The first letter went to the church of Ephesus. It was a love letter. He wanted to know why they no longer loved Him as they did at first. Isn’t that amazing? That the Lord Jesus would care whether we love Him or not? Don’t we all need to hear this today? You may be listening today and you feel lonely and unloved. You may wonder whether the Lord is even aware of your situation. Does He even care?
Hear this: Jesus loves you. And he wants to know whether you love Him back. In Revelation chapter 2, Jesus told John to write a letter to the church of Ephesus, calling them to always put their love for Him first. We can answer Christ’s call to put our love for Him first. -
This Is Your Legacy
When we pray, “God, this is Your legacy” we are recognizing that we are in fact His legacy. As believers we are the present day legacy of the Gospel. Generations of believers are responsible for your sitting here listening to God’s Word today. We are God’s legacy and His faithful family passing this on to future generations.
In the book of Ephesians, the apostle Paul prayed that God would reveal His gifts through the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in this age and the age to come. God gives us gifts to share through the revelation of His Spirit. -
The Parable of the Lost Son
Fables teach us work hard, to work for what we want, and that our hard work will be rewarded. Or they teach us to keep working until the end, or not to lie.
Parables, though, are stories Jesus told to help us understand what the kingdom of Heaven is about. In the Parable of the Lost Son, Jesus taught the Pharisees and other religious leaders that God’s forgiveness was freely given because of how generous God the Father is, not because we earn his love by how good we are. -
The Relentless Yes
What if we’ve taken the step to put our yes on the table but then life got difficult and we took it back off? What if we had our yes on the table and were waiting on God to move but He never did, so we took our yes back off? What if our yes is still on the table this morning but we’re exhausted, burning out, and we’re very close to taking our yes back off the table? Today we will learn how to give God our “Relentless Yes,” whereby we keep our yes on the table, no matter what life throws at us; no matter how long we have to wait; no matter how tired we get.
In the book of Joshua, the writer recorded how Joshua trusted God with his relentless yes in defeating the city of Jericho. We can trust God with our relentless yes to whatever He asks us to do.