The grace of God through Jesus and nothing else. That is the good news of our salvation. Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, we are made right with God and set free from the slavery of sin and death. But good news is often hard to believe – it can sound too good...
Peace. It is something we all long for, something we especially anticipate with the coming of Christmas. Yet, peace is elusive, especially with the coming of Christmas. With so much to do, this time of year when we expect to experience peace can often be filled with...
Study Guide Download In Ephesians, God reveals to us aspects of His character, challenges us to be worthy of our calling in Christ, and gives us direction in our personal interactions with each other. Ephesians is a foundational explanation of the principle of unity...
Week 7 Paul & Power Week 7 Most of us measure success by whether or not we achieved the desired outcome. Success means achievement. Success, therefore, is rooted in our ability to control processes and circumstances to achieve the outcomes we want. But as we learn...
Relationships are central to the Christian Faith. The two greatest commandments in all of scripture are rooted in relationship – love God, love others. Jesus said that all of the words and laws of the Bible could be reduced to our need to love God and others. Indeed,...
Week 4What Changes UsWeek 4 Everyone likes to be safe. Truthfully, there is a lot about “safe” to like. But “safe” very rarely changes us. Staying in a place of comfort and safety doesn’t change us in meaningful ways. Today we are going to look at an episode in Acts...
The last book of the Bible is one of the most difficult to understand. Revelation contains imagery and symbolism that can be very confusing. One such passage in Revelation involves Jesus warning a church that he is preparing to “spit them out of his mouth” because...
Can we trust God? The easy answer is, of course, but this answer is sometimes easier to say than it is to believe. When things go wrong, is God still there? When we go wrong, can we still trust God? Or will He change His mind and reject us in anger? Our experiences...
Serving isn’t glamorous. Giving of our time and energy can seem like an inconvenience. But it is never a waste of time. In God’s economy, the goodness we experience in our lives is always greatly multiplied when we choose to follow him and walk in the good works he...
The Bible has the power to transform our hearts and our lives when we engage with it because it connects us with the very words of God. Just like anything worth learning, to truly know it, we must not only read it, but, study and reflect on it. Going deeper takes more...
In Jesus’ story of two lost and wasteful sons there is a character is who far more wasteful and who willingly loses whatever is necessary – the Father. In response to the rejection and rebellion of his sons, the father answers with extravagant self-sacrificing love...
The Parable of the Prodigal Son is a story of two sons. The older son is the son favored by tradition and culture. In Jesus’ time the older son would receive a larger inheritance and would be responsible to care for and uphold the family. In Jesus’ story the older son...
The Parable of the Prodigal Son centers around the younger of two sons who turns his back on his father and his family to pursue his own freedom and happiness. His journey of rebellion, self-destruction, awakening, return, and redemption represents the very heart of...
Most of the events recorded in the Bible took place before Christmas. Long before the first Christmas was the promise that Christmas would come. This promise brought great hope, but it also brought frustration and restlessness. This is still true of Christmas. We...
If you think about it, we make a lot of choices and decisions based on assumptions. We assume we know what someone meant; that we have all the information; that we know the outcome. The problem is that our assumptions often turn out to be completely wrong and this can...
This week we’ll continue our study of the Miracles of Jesus by investigating a miracle Jesus performed demonstrating his ability to meet our deepest need, the forgiveness of our sin. Through the healing of a paralytic brought to Jesus by his friends, we see that while...
Life is busy and people are tired. Our days are filled with what seems like a never-ending list of activities and obligations. The hectic nature of life makes us long for rest. This is just what Jesus promises to those who will come to him. He offers rest to those who...
This week we’ll begin our study by looking at Jesus very first miracle at the Wedding at Cana. We’ll look at what He did – a miracle of creation – and think about why He did it and what it meant to those he was serving. We’ll also discuss what that means for us as we...
It has always been the mission of the church to grow. Jesus told His disciples that they were to go the ends of the earth making disciples and inviting people to become part of the community of faith. This is an incredible calling, but it is also challenging. Growing...
The Doctrine of the Trinity – that God is One in Essence and Three in Person – is one of the most ancient and well established beliefs in Christianity. While it is perplexing, mysterious, and often confusing, it is far from irrelevant. God’s simultaneous unity and...
If you follow Jesus you’re weird. You’re supposed to be weird. You don’t have to read much of the life of Jesus or his teachings to realize that there was something wonderfully weird about him or that he called his followers to live out that same weirdness together....