THE BLOG
Topic
- Anxiety 2
- Beauty 1
- Bible 7
- Blessings 1
- Body of Christ 1
- Burden 1
- CEO 1
- Christian Living 191
- Christlikeness 6
- Christmas 14
- Commandments 1
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- Discipleship 5
- Emotions 6
- Eternity 2
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- Faith 2
- Forgive 4
- Freedom 1
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- God 2
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- Hebrews 11 1
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- Holy Spirit 1
- Homosexuality 1
- Humility 1
- Israel 2
- Jesus 9
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- King of Glory 1
- Lying 1
- Missions 3
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- Pastor Jeff 1
- Perspective 2
- Prayer 8
- Psalm 119 3
- Reading 1
- Salvation 13
- Sanctification 1
- Satan 1
- Scripture 3
Give to God What is God’s
When Jesus said, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s,” He wasn’t just making a statement about taxes—He was pointing to the very core of who we are. Just as a coin bears Caesar’s image, we bear the image of God. That means our lives, our choices, and our worship rightly belong to Him. To claim our lives as our own is to steal what is His.
Counting the Cost of Immorality
On Sunday, we studied the seventh commandment—“You shall not commit adultery”—and were reminded both of the beauty of sexual purity in our lives and relationships, and of the ugliness and devastation of sexual sin.
One of the ways God motivates us to pursue purity (whether married or single) is by warning us of the many consequences that come with sowing seeds of immorality. In the message we highlighted 13 of these consequences from God’s Word
What’s Better?
You often hear the word “better” tossed around in daily life: “things get better with time,” “better safe than sorry,” “better late than never,” “we can build a better world,” “for better or for worse,” “my emotions got the better of me,” or even, “Dr. Pepper is better than Mr. Pibb.”
But when you turn to Scripture, you quickly discover that God’s use of “better” runs counter to ours. What we call “better” is often shallow, temporary, or even distorted. God’s “better” speaks to truth, wisdom, holiness, and eternal realities. And that difference must remain crystal clear.
Is Jesus really the only way?
As I was re-reading some of our Fusion book, More Than a Carpenter, Josh McDowell discussed this question using some of the following arguments and Scriptures in his 11th chapter, "Isn't There Some Other Way?"
Restoring Parent-Child Relationships
This past Sunday, we learned what God teaches about His fifth commandment: "Honor your father and mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which Yahweh your God gives you" (Exodus 20:12). One of the truths we know by Scripture and experience is how honor will be resisted by sinful hearts and it must be continuously cultivated. Sadly, this honor in the home is not always mutually experienced and enjoyed and results in sorrow and brokenness in some of our closest relationships.
Consider Rest
“Busy.” It may be the most common response we hear—and give—when someone asks, “How are you?” “I’m swamped.” “Overloaded.” “Maxed out.” “Slammed.” “Stretched thin.” We say we’re running on fumes, spinning plates, burning the candle at both ends, or caught in the rat race.
When Success Still Doesn’t Satisfy
Scottie Sheffler is the #1 ranked golfer in the world and has been for the last 147 weeks. A reporter asked him about how he views his wins and his losses and he responded in a profound way:
Perspective
One of the important lessons we need to learn about living the Christian life is maintaining an eternal perspective in the midst of horizontal life that is always full of distraction and trials.
I ran across a story that reminds us how important perspective can be. A college student wrote the following letter to her parents:
Two Year Old Theology and the Law
During the sermon on Sunday, I made a joke that Piper’s (my 2-year-old daughter) favorite words right now are “mine” and “no.” After the service someone jokingly asked her what her favorite word was, and without skipping a beat she yelled, “no!”
The point I was making was that we are sinful since birth and that we need rules and commands from our parents to know how to properly act. Similarly, we need the rules and commands of God to know how to obey Him, honor our parents, and love our neighbor as ourselves.