Have you ever considered the relationship between how we treat people and their receptiveness to the Gospel message? I struggle with tone — how you say something matters just as much to me as what you’re saying. If you approach me “too fired up”, it doesn’t matter how right you are or how strong your argument is; the second your…
“Embrace the chaos” I’m sure we’ve heard this saying before. Typically, we use this saying in situations that are confusing, challenging, messy or overwhelming…chaotic! Not only that, but when we take a step back and look at the situation, we often are telling ourselves that we need to accept the fact that there is nothing we can do to control…
Introduction: “Jesus, the Name above any other name…” Earlier this year we had spent some time in a previous devotional looking at lyrics to the song ‘Build my life’. We are revisiting this song this week, looking at more Biblical truths from the lyrics. Unity as a church body and opening ourselves up for what God has for us, have…
How do you respond when things don’t go your way? One of the sobering things about being a parent is that you see yourself in your kids, and sometimes, you don’t like what you see. Our children can often act as a mirror revealing to us what we are really like. When it comes to hard or disappointing times I’d…
“I have ceased from my wandering and going astray, since Jesus came into my heart” -Since Jesus Came Into My Heart Last Sunday, we sang the hymn “Come thou fount of every blessing”. ‘Prone to wander’ was one of the lines that we had focused on in our devotional last week. We saw a story in 1 Samuel 25 where…
The lyrics throughout the beloved hymn “Come, thou fount of every blessing” speak to different ways God shows his mercy toward us…Mercy that rescues us from danger and Mercy that rescues us from ourselves. From our own wandering. Mercy is something that King David had experienced on countless occasions. He wrote of God’s mercy all over the Psalms. Not just…
Introduction: There is a quote that I used all the time during my young adult years. You may be familiar with it. The quote is attributed to St. Francis of Assisi and it says: “Preach the gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.” I think the main point of this quote is valid…if all we do is ‘talk’, and…
I’m quickly growing in the belief that hope is one of the most powerful forces on the planet. I’m not sure if I made this up or if I stole/adapted it from someone else, but “if you want to destroy a person, destroy their hope.” Our main focus for this Sunday is on praying that God would open our ears…
“Open the eyes of my heart Lord. Open the eyes of my heart. I want to see you.” As we continue in our new sermon series: ‘Open’…we had the special blessing of celebrating a baptism last week and will be celebrating another one next Sunday! Last Sunday we heard of the amazing impromptu baptism of one of our youth. This,…
This Sunday, we are beginning a new series focused on seeking God’s will in our prayer lives every day. This series pairs well with our closing hymn for this Sunday, “Open My Eyes, That I May See.”[we wrote previously about this song here] In this series, we will be exploring the following topics: – Open our minds to understand the…