Easter is the celebration of all celebrations! Jesus Christ has conquered sin and death and is raised to life. The resurrection of Jesus is not some legend that has been passed down through the ages meant to give us an excuse for another holiday. In Easter we see the...
There’s a tension we may experience between truth and love: telling someone the truth doesn’t always seem loving, and sometimes loving people can feel as though it comes at the expense of telling the truth. It’s easy to embrace one while neglecting the other. Yet,...
Sometimes God keeps secrets and sometimes He likes to reveal them. Regardless of the outcome, one thing is always true: God’s thoughts and ways are bigger and higher than our own. And He has a right to keep or disclose secrets as He chooses. But can we get to a place...
We’ve just come through a time of gift-giving and joy. Of course, the most significant gift of all was God’s gift of Jesus to the world. We find this profound truth simply stated in what might be the most famous of all Bible verses: John 3:16. Maybe this verse is so...
God has gifted each of us to contribute to the spiritual well-being of the body of Christ. Being good stewards of our gifts means using them to impact the lives of others. Loving one another, serving one another, accepting one another, and encouraging one another are...
Our past marks us. Those experiences go into making us the people we are. But some of those experiences we would rather forget. Guilt, shame, and regret can carve deep gashes in our souls—permanent reminders of another life we would prefer to leave behind. But God...
Spiritual health is impossible apart from discipleship. We can hardly say that, as Christians, we are spiritually healthy if we are not following the way of Jesus. The question is how do we follow Jesus in a healthy way? It is very easy for discipleship to become...
Saying that Jesus is Lord, implies surrendering to His will over ours. No matter how you frame it, surrender is frightening. When we surrender, we are vulnerable. When we surrender someone else determines our path and can take us where we do not want to go. Jesus...
It seems clear that Jesus wants to shape culture. To ultimately transform the conscience and morality of a people. His disciples anticipated that Jesus was about to establish a political machine capable of toppling the Roman Empire. But that’s not what Jesus did. The...
Becoming a Christian and living as one are two different things. God refers to one as justification and the other as sanctification. We might also understand these two distinctions as finding Jesus and following Jesus. Blur this distinction between salvation and...
Salvation is often viewed as a singular “event” or moment in our lives. By God’s grace, we receive salvation by believing in the death and resurrection of Jesus to save us. There is a sense in which this is absolutely true, from the moment of belief we are saved...
You’re born into God’s family the moment you place your faith in Jesus for eternal life. You start as a spiritual baby. But it’s never God’s intention for you to remain a baby. You are to grow and thrive as a maturing believer in Jesus. But you never grow passively....
Have you ever felt unprepared? You’ve probably had a time in your life when you were not prepared at all for what was about to happen. As our flesh constantly fights to lead us further away from God, it’s easy for us to feel unprepared for life. But God prepares us by...
Is it possible to know you have a new life through Christ and are headed for heaven? If so, how? God never intends for the assurance of your salvation to be a perpetual guessing game. You can know you’re saved. Unfortunately, you can lose your grip on the assurance of...
Study Guide Download Week 8 Throughout our study, we have looked at seven of Jesus’ “I AM” Statements in the Gospel of John: I AM the Bread of Life – John 6 I AM the Light of the World – John 8/9 I AM the Good Shepherd – John 10 I AM the Resurrection and the Life –...
Study Guide Download Week 7 Last week we began looking at Jesus’ final words to His disciples in the Upper Room Discourse. In this section of John, Jesus gives His very last words to the disciples before going to the cross. He is preparing them for His death, but also...
"Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under its wings. Day and night they never stop saying: “ ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty,’ who was, and is, and is to come.” Whenever the living creatures give...
Study Guide Download Week 6 Last week we studied Jesus’ claim, “I AM the resurrection and the life,” in John 11. John 11:25-26 “Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and...
Habits can have a profound impact on our lives in both good and bad ways. And often, we’re unaware of how much we do in our lives simply by force of habit. We’ll discuss how modern behavioral science is catching up to what the church has known for thousands of years...
Study Guide Download Week 5 Last week we discovered in John 10 Jesus’ claim that He is the Good Shepherd. John 10:14-15 “14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father, and I lay down my life for the...
Study Guide Download Week 4 Last week we examined John 8 in which Jesus proclaimed that He was the light of the world. John 8:12 “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” Jesus made this proclamation...