How God Builds His Church 1. He breaks down walls 2. He lays a foundation 3. He joins people together 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the…
Theme: The Cross is Crucial 1) For Christ and 2) For the Christian Have you ever been watching your favorite kind of action movie, you know the kind with Bruce Willis or Liam Neeson or Gerard Butler, and right when the “going starts to get rough”, you do a little bit of mental cheating? The…
“Who, me? Couldn’t be!?” Remember that song? “Who stole the cookies from the cookie jar?” Classic. It was such merriment to sing that as a kid of a certain age and get a chance to accuse someone of stealing the cookies right out of the jar! Excitement! Getting to deny that you stole the cookies…
(Matthew 14:22–33) 22 Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. 23 After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone, 24 and the boat was…
The Christian Trusts God to Provide 1) When he asks you to bear the cross 2) When things are getting dicey 3) Because he has given you promises to rely on In the name of God, the one who opens his hand and satisfies the desires of every living thing. Let me offer you a…
If God appeared to you in a dream extending the same open ended offer he did to Solomon, what would you ask for? This hypothetical opportunity serves as spiritual Rorschach test. Dr. Hermann Rorschach, a Swiss psychologist, put his artistic side to work and started using images like [these] to help identify and analyze what…
24 Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25 But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26 When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. 27 “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t…
This summer I’ve been watching the nature part of Jesus’ “Parable of the Sower” play out in my wife’s garden. She sowed the seeds in late spring, and soon she declared war with the birds. We must have an extra vicious breed of sparrows and robins, that not only snatch away seed, but even the…
We say, “The heart wants what the heart wants,” to justify being drawn to things, to people, to relationships, which are just toxic. “We’re not compatible, no good for each other. But hey, the heart wants what the heart wants!” Sometimes, the heart totally gives in, loses itself to another person, to a bad situation…
15 Moses turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands. They were inscribed on both sides, front and back. 16 The tablets were the work of God; the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets. 17 When Joshua heard the noise of the people shouting, he said to Moses, “There is…
