The Bible is clear that Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus is God in the flesh. He was born to a virgin. He lived a sinless life. He was crucified and died for our sins. He was resurrected from the grave conquering sin and everything that comes with it. 40 days later Jesus ascended to the Father. But the Bible is also very clear that someday this Jesus will return for His people. And every day we are one day closer to His return. We are closer to his return today than we were yesterday and we will be closer tomorrow than we are today. Continue reading
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We are deep into looking at discovering God’s will and how to know His will for your personal and unique life. Let’s start with this thought…
God’s will is more concerned about your “who” than your “do.” God wants you to “be” in His will, not just “do” His will. Listen carefully, who you are determines what you do. Your behavior and decisions are a reflection of who you are. Your character determines your choices. Who you are influences what you do. Someone once said, “When a person behaves a certain, believe them.” This is why God’s will is more concerned about your “who” than your “do.” If you get the “who” right, then you will get the “do” right. Let me show you what I mean from God’s Word. Continue reading
One of the most common questions I am asked as a pastor is some version of this question, “What is God’s will for my life? What does God want me to do?” This question shows up in many ways.
- “Hey, I’m praying about whether I should take this new job, but if I do, I have to move to another city. How do I know what God wants me to do?”
- “I have been dating this person for a while, should I marry them or not? What does God want me to do?” or “I’ve been dating this person for a while, I don’t know if I should continue the relationship or breakup of with them. What does God want me to do?”
- “Does God want me to go to college close by or to this other college?”
- “Does God want me to join this church or that church?”
- “What does God want me to do about my kids?”
Does anyone here have the spiritual gift of losing things? Raise your hand. Do you have someone in your family who has this gift? You seem to lose things all the time. Your keys, your wallet, your purse, the remote, whatever. You can’t find your sunglasses, and you are wearing them. We laugh about all this because we all misplace things and lose things that we don’t mean to lose.
But some things we lose are hard to get back, if we ever get them back. You may have lost a friendship. Maybe you are going through a difficult season in life, and you have lost your peace, lost your joy, or lost your sense of purpose. Maybe you have lost your trust in someone that you thought you would always be able to depend on. Maybe you have lost your spiritual passion and your intimacy with God. You don’t feel close to God like you used to you. Maybe something has been lost between you and your spouse, or you and one of your children. Continue reading
Today, I want to talk to those who might be spiritually stuck in your faith. You feel like your faith and spiritual life have become stagnant. You don’t feel like you are moving forward in your faith and if you are you feel like you are moving at a snail’s pace. You feel like your spiritual life is missing something. Yet, there is this part of you that desires more spiritual growth and more spiritual passion and more spiritual impact. Yet, what you are experiencing is more of the same and more of what you just had. You feel like you are going through the routine spiritually, but nothing is really happening. For some of you, you may feel like you’re living below who you know that God created you to be. And it’s not that you don’t care, you actually do care. Some of you have been like me at different seasons of my life where you are genuinely praying and seeking God, but your prayers don’t really feel effective. Or you are reading the Bible, and you want to hear from God but sometimes His voice just seems distant. And sometimes, you are worshipping God and you really want to feel His presence, but you just can’t seem to feel Him. This is when you feel like you are just PLOWING through life. Someone just say, “I’m just plowing.” Continue reading
We are on an incredible adventure with Jonah. We are learning a lot about ourselves, about God, and His plans for our lives. One of the things I want us to see today is the incredible truth that our loving and compassionate God is in pursuit of us for our affections and attention. He is determined to have your heart because He loves you so much! Continue reading
The Bible mentions several different types of spiritual gifts. Here they are with a brief definition for each one in alphabetical order. Continue reading
God is not going to waste this coming year with you. God is going to do something significant in your life. I’m not a prophet, but I can with great confidence say that this year God is going to try to teach you about love: loving Him, loving others and loving you. These lessons on love will come from God’s Word, be illuminated by the Holy Spirit, exemplified by Jesus, and experienced in real life.
These lessons on love will cover five aspects of love.
- How to receive God’s love
- How to express love to God
- How to love others
- How to receive love from others
- How to love yourself
God is going to work on those five aspects of love in your life. God is love and He wants you to be like Him. Let’s begin by defining what love is and then unpack each one. What is love? The Bible describes four different types of love. Continue reading
Throughout God’s Word the Lord is described as your Shepherd and you are described as His sheep. Sheep are known to wander off the path and away from the flock. The Shepherd often must protect His sheep from the wolves, traps, thieves, and other dangers. Sheep will often scatter and run away and get lost when there is a storm, and become confused. They become overwhelmed by the circumstances and panic. When the storm is over the Shepherd will go and find the lost sheep and bring Him back.
Something similar is about to happen to the disciples. Something similar happens to you and me as followers of Jesus. As the Lord’s sheep we often fall away and wander off the path God wants us to stay on. We become frightened, confused, or angry at what is happening around us or to us and it causes us to fall away. However, like a good shepherd He restores us, reconciles us, comforts us, strengthens us, and refocuses us. We see all this in Mark 14:27-31. Continue reading
As a follower of Jesus, there are times where you are stronger than you think you are and there are times when you are weaker than you think you are. Learning to follow Jesus includes learning what your limitations are and learning from your failures.
Today, we are going to begin looking at Jesus telling His disciples they are about to lose their faith in Him, desert Him, and falter in their faithfulness. From this we are going to see some important lessons about ourselves when we begin to feel the world is falling apart around us and we blame God for it. At those times, if you begin to struggle trusting God, talking to God or defending God then you are not alone. Continue reading
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