But how can people call for help if they don’t know who to trust? And how can they know who to trust if they haven’t heard of the One who can be trusted? And how can they hear if nobody tells them? -Romans 10:14 (MSG) To truly realize how lost the world is, we must …
As the summer heat begins to grow in intensity, threats concerning the stifling weather of hell will begin to grace many church signs.
To start this wonderful time of year where we try to scare people into church, I give you this week’s bad church sign:
HOT?
IMAGINE HELL
FOR A RIDE CALL…
Not only is this church willing to tell you how hot is, they are also willing to give you a ride there ;)! That’s very thoughtful of them, but I’d rather pass.
A few thoughts:
When we’ve been wronged, it’s easy for us to turn into judge, jury, and executioner. We’ve been unfairly hurt, and we think it would be fitting to make things right. The problem is this: we are not the ones who make it right—that’s God’s job.
It’s time for us to let it go.
“Forgive the same way Jesus forgives: freely and willingly. Acknowledge God as the rightful Judge over that persons’ life” (The Resolution, page 176).
If someone has hurt you, it’s simply difficult to let it go. Read Romans 12:17-21 and discover how God desires us to handle our hurts:
In addition to training your children to submit to your authority, you are also responsible to teach them to submit and to honor all of the authorities in their lives. The Resolution, a great read, provides some questions to ask what type of example you are setting with your own life:
Answer the following questions honestly:
Take a minute to read Romans 13:1-7 and discover how God expects us to behave towards our authority.
15 What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Absolutely not! 16 Do you not know that if you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of that one you obey—either of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness? 17 But thank God that, although you used to be slaves of sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching you were entrusted to, 18 and having been liberated from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness.
(Romans 6:15-18, HCSB)
I was in a restaurant in Colorado eating dinner on a mission trip. This restaurant was one of those joints where it was encouraged to write on the wall to inscribe your name or your wisest thought. Among the walls of inscriptions, my eyes caught a glimpse of a poem that someone had penned: “Sex is evil, sex is sin, God forgives, so let’s begin.”
I’ve been so humbled by so many comments from Sunday’s worship services. People have gone out of their way to say how impacting the time was, how we should have just kept singing for a few more hours, how tears of joy were flooding their eyes as we sang to our King. Most of people commented, “that was ‘good’ worship.”
I’m not gonna lie. I thought we were about to sing the roof off that place all 3 times Sunday morning. I personally almost sang myself back into tonsillectomy rehab cause I just couldn’t hold it back. But was it really “good” worship?
Sure, I loved the song selections. The band was smoking and played the dynamics just right. The singers nailed their parts. The choir sounded like an angelic force to be reckoned with. The congregation was outsinging all the microphones on stage. It was loud. It was engaging. It was powerful.
But was it really “good” worship?
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires. 13 And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness. 14 For sin will not rule over you, because you are not under law but under grace.
(Romans 6:12-14, HCSB)
As a father of two two-year-olds (no, that wasn’t a typo), I am frequently having the conversation about who is the boss in the house. It is amazing to me that someone so little can have such audacity to think that the world obviously revolves around him. As a parent, sometimes I feel that I say “no” much more than I say “yes.”
I will regularly look at my sons and say, “You’re not the boss. Daddy is the boss. You obey what Daddy says. This is not a democracy. You don’t even get a vote.” I’ll never forget that one day I was telling my oldest two-year-old, Obadiah, that he was not in charge and that I was the boss when he interrupted me and said, “No, Mommy’s the boss!”
He was on restrictions for the next week.
When someone or something tries to be in charge when they shouldn’t be, things get chaotic. In a home, it results in bad behaved children, in a spiritual walk, it results in bad behaved adults. Sin does not have the right to rule in our lives, yet it does rule when we obey sin’s desires. As Christians, sin has lost it’s authoritative power over us. It is gone. Yet we give sin the throne when we give up the fight and yield to sinful desires.
8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him, 9 because we know that Christ, having been raised from the dead, no longer dies. Death no longer rules over Him. 10 For in that He died, He died to sin once for all; but in that He lives, He lives to
As our worship team strives to be available by leading with presence, this month we have focused on praying for different sections of your church. This week, I want you to continue to pray for church members, but I want you to do something unusual: I want you to pray for the ones you don’t
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