From the Blog
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God Is Love
As the great philosophers The Beatles once sang, “All you need is love, love, love is all you need.” We come into this world with an intrinsic need to be loved. Maybe for you today this truth is a tragic reality. We need love but feel unloved.
But God’s love is perfect. When others leave, He stays, through your quirks and mistakes and messes. God is love and His motivation and action is always love. In the book of 1 John, the apostle encouraged believers to know that God is love and to respond with loving one another. We can know that God is love and respond in love. -
Life Together
How are you doing in the area of connection? Are you lonely? We are more digitally connected today than ever, but lack true togetherness. When faced with this rampant problem, the Holy Spirit has a solution: coming together! We are social beings, created by God to live life together.
In the book of Acts, the apostle Luke described how God blessed first-century believers as they devoted themselves to life together. We can experience God’s blessing by doing life together. -
A Mighty Fortress Is Our God
"A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" is one of the best-known hymns by Martin Luther, who wrote the words and composed the melody sometime between 1527 and 1529. It has been translated into English at least seventy times and into many other languages. It has been called the "Battle Hymn of the Reformation" for the effect it had in increasing the support for the Reformers' cause.
When you look at your life, do you sometimes want a fortress? Do you need a refuge from busyness? Do you lack the confidence that comes with spending time with the Lord? Do you need strength to meet the demands of life today? Martin Luther sang the words of Psalm 46 often, and it led him to write “Mighty Fortress”. Perhaps you need the strength of God’s presence. In Psalm 46, the Psalmist wrote a song for the people of Israel telling them that God is with us and gives us strength. We can know that God’s might is with us always! -
It Is Well
"It Is Well with My Soul" is a hymn written by hymnist Horatio Spafford and composed by Philip Bliss. Spafford was a lawyer and a senior partner in a large law firm. The Spaffords were supporters and friends of evangelist Dwight L. Moody. First published in 1876, it is possibly the most influential and enduring in the Bliss repertoire and is often taken as a choral model, appearing in hymnals of a wide variety of Christian fellowships.
When you look at your life, is there a need for wellness? Do you struggle with physical or mental health issues? Perhaps you are like Horatio Spafford, struggling with the loss of a loved one and desire peaceful mental wellness. Perhaps you are struggling through physical or financial infirmities. Maybe you can’t even put it into words, but feel as the hymnist did, that “sorrows like sea billows roll”. When David looked at the troubles in his life, he saw that he was beset by enemies, but more importantly, he saw that he was troubled by his own sinfulness. David realized that the one solution to his pain was to abide in the Lord. Verse 13 says that the believer’s soul shall abide in well-being. He said, as the hymnist did, “It is Well with My Soul.” In Psalms chapter 25, David wrote how abiding in the Lord brings well-being for the soul. -
Freedom over Rules
True freedom is something we all hunger for. A student longs to be free of instruction, a teenager longs to be free of their parents, a debtor longs to be free of their debt, and we all long for the freedom to live our lives the best way we know how. Our country was founded on this idea of freedom. We celebrate our independence because we desired freedom from tyranny and the right govern ourselves.
True freedom can only be found in Jesus. This freedom frees from not only the physical but spiritual bonds which enslave us. As our text will conclude today, “If the Son sets you free, you are truly free." In John chapter 8, Jesus taught in the temple of Jerusalem that those who He set free were truly free indeed. We can experience this true freedom by faith in Jesus. -
Hope Remains
Fear has the same power over the mind and body, but equal and opposite to hope. What are you afraid of? What fears have caused you to be stuck in the mud, what fears have caused you to lose hope? One of the most common fears is simply the fear of the unknown and in these unpredictable times that fear becomes very real for so many of us. It can be difficult to know even what to hope for much less how to sustain hope. So many of grew up with big hopes and dreams until we had to deal with the fears and pains of “real life.”
In the letter to the Romans, Paul wrote that present sufferings did not compare to the hope of glory in Christ Jesus. We too can put our hope in the glory to be revealed in Jesus. -
These Are Your Kids
Some of our natural parenting methods might work from time to time, but we often feel like we fall short in parenting. We feel like we are just getting through it and basically surviving. But God desires to shoulder this with us and empower us to be faithful parents. “God, these are your kids!”
In the book of Ephesians, Paul instructed children and parents to completely focus their relationships on the Lord. We can completely focus our parenting relationship on the Lord. -
This Is Your Marriage
The instruction to the husband to love his wife and to the wife to respect her husband are simple in number, but they don’t feel simple in practice. But God does not merely give you His Word of instruction, but also the will and power to follow them. In the book of Ephesians, the apostle…
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Victory is Here
Most of us have been dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic for a few months now, and many of us are weary. Some may feel angry, depressed, or just plain defeated. Some have gotten sick; many are out of work or have had their hours or pay cut. Some have cabin fever. We really need to see that eventually, there will be a victorious end to our struggles, whether in this pandemic, in another area of struggle, or perhaps at the end of our journey.
We know this already – Jesus defeated sin and death, and His victory is ours. In the book of 2 Corinthians, the apostle Paul and his disciple Timothy reminded the church there that Jesus allows us to participate in His victory. God allows us to participate in His victory. -
Be a Disciple Maker
As we read Jesus’ last instruction on earth to his disciples before he was raised up to Heaven, we see the disciples struggling to determine what their next steps were. After all, the rabbi that they followed for three years, which whom they had done and seen amazing things including His death, burial and resurrection, was about the leave them, or so they thought. After His many appearances after His resurrection, Jesus was about to give His disciples His final words. He is about to give them their mission orders.
We are no different than those disciples. We need to know what God’s desire is for our lives. We need to know what to do next. People, but especially men, respond to a challenge. We need a challenge – we all need to find purpose for our lives.
For us to find that purpose, we need to first respond to the mission orders of Jesus. We need to become disciple makers. In this well-known passage in the gospel of Matthew, Jesus gave mission orders to His disciples to make disciples of all nations. As disciples ourselves, we can learn how to make disciples of all peoples.