While driving home from vacation a few weeks ago, I had the chance to listen to The Message on Sirius/XM. They were having one of their artist spotlights. As I listened to the story behind the song, I began to think that these songs all tell stories about our daily lives. For the next several weeks we’ll look at some of the more popular songs that tell a story about our day-to-day lives. Continue reading
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Created in the image of God we’ve broken his creation. We need more than just a simple redecorating job. We need a complete rebuild, and that’s what we have in Christ. Listen as Pastor Derrick explains what it means to be RE-framed in Christ.
The New Testament contains many teachings of Jesus. Nestled in the teachings of Jesus is a call to his disciples, and to us today. There are three keys for us to understand about this call. Listen as Pastor Derrick shares these three key points to better live out our calling.
The news media lately has been focusing so much on the recent SCOTUS ruling regarding same-sex unions that there seems to be an increase in negative reactions and even hatred flowing throughout our nation. What happened to the time when we could have a disagreement and deal with it through a healthy conversation? What happened to sitting down face to face and agreeing to disagree but still walking away friends, or at least not enemies? Continue reading
It’s all the buzz today. The phrase #lovewins, but do we really know what it means to have a winning kind of love? Listen this week as Pastor Derrick shares a little on what winning love looks like.
In the last post we dealt with bad 
choices
and the effects they have on us at the core of our day-to-day lives. These bad choices can ostracize us and make us feel unworthy. And if that weren’t bad enough, it’s often difficult to live on the other side of that bad choice. This difficulty is made worse because we continuously go backward fishing. Continue reading
We’ve all done it. We’ve all made a choice that has haunted us for some time to follow. That choice may have been eating two chili dogs right before bed. That choice may have been to yell at our spouse. That choice may have been to break a civil law. No matter the choice we have made, it’s still a bad choice and we have to live the with the consequences. Continue reading
The idea of chasing a storm may seem a bit strange. Storms can wreak havoc on entire communities. They can level cities and demolish landscapes. But there are people who will devote large portions of their lives to chasing down these storms and watching them. They do it so that they can learn more about them. Sure there’s a thrill of the hunt but for them there’s learning to do. Wind speeds, changes in direction, rainfall amounts, pressure changes are some of the things for which they look. Continue reading
We all have storms in our lives but how we deal with them is critical. Jesus took a little nap in the boat and his disciples lost their heads. At least they knew who to call when the storm got out of hand. Who do you call when life crashes in?
My kids are big into The Avengers. I’m not sure if they have a favorite because all of them are so amazing. Take the HULK for instance. The man, Bruce Banner, is a fairly normal guy. He’s smart but nothing out of this world, but when he gets angry – look out! His anger turns to rage and the beast we know as the HULK comes out and there’s just not stopping him. Then there’s Iron Man a billionaire, playboy, philanthropist who likes to respond to trouble by suiting up in his home-made, jet propelled suit of armor.
But the problem is…none of these guys are realistic! They are all setting up the idea in our minds that we have to be someone with extreme powers to be worth something in the world. It’s not just superheroes either. It happens all over the place, even in the church.
Many church going people get the image in their minds that they need to preach like the Apostle Paul or they’re not good enough. Or they must have a following of someone like Billy Graham. Or they have to do as many good deeds as a Mother Theresa. These superheroes of the faith are wonderful people who did many great things, but we don’t have to be them!
The truth of the matter is everything needed for our salvation was already done. We don’t have to do anything because Jesus did everything. This means that while powerful preaching is great, it’s not necessary for our salvation. Gathering great crowds of people to demonstrate the greatness of God is a worthwhile endeavor but it’s not essential to our eternity. Doing good works is definitely something great to pursue, but even this is not a mandatory piece to gain favor with God. Everything needed for our salvation was already done for us in Jesus.
When Jesus went to the cross he completed everything that was required of you and me. His death was the payment needed for our sins. His resurrection was the completion that opened heaven for us. Now there’s simply nothing we have to do because it’s all been done already on the cross. This now opens us the world for us. We now by the power of Christ in us are empowered to accomplish great and amazing things in our daily lives. We’re not superheroes, nor are we supposed to be. But we’re ordinary people who God calls to live our lives following Him.
It’s that simple. The message of the church throughout the book of Acts was just that – Jesus did it all. Now we’re invited to follow Christ on his mission in the world today. You don’t have to do anything because Jesus did everything for you.
