The very first words we read in this 40 Days of Purpose series were, "It's not about you." You were created for more than just to serve yourself. You were created to serve God and to serve others. Ifwe want to move from being overwhelmed all the time to being a person who is so full of joy and peace and God's love that we overflow to those around us,we must shift our mind...

Jesus takes my sins on himself. This is the best news in the whole world. We call it the Gospel which is an old English word for Good News. Jesus takes all my guilt and all my sin on himself. He says, "I'm going to give you all my goodness," also called righteousness. "I'm going to give you all my goodness so you can get into heaven and I'm going to take all of your guilt...

Did you know that Jesus feels our grief? It's because he understands grief. He's been there. He's experienced it too. He came to earth and became one of us so he's experienced all of the loneliness that people experience, the betrayal that people experience, the rejection that people experience. Isaiah 53:3-4, 700 plus years before Jesus came to earth, Isaiah describes Je...

Jesus turns my hurts into holiness. I need to explain this. Jesus turns my hurts into holiness. What I'm saying is that God brings good out of bad. He brings good out of evil. He has a way of turning things around. The stuff that happens to you, it's not all good. There's a lot of bad stuff that happens to you, but God says, "I can turn it around. I can transform it. I ca...

The Bible teaches very clearly that the way to have good friends is this: The type of friend I am is the type of friend I will attract. In the book of Proverbs there are six marks of a real friend. If we build these into our life, then we'll attract these kind of people in our life. These are also six keys to a great marriage. 1. I MUST BE COMMITTED Proverbs 18:24 There ...

A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. A bundle of sticks is hard to break. It's our choice. We can decide to go it alone, or we can decide to "bundle" with other believers. This is the way that God intended us to live. 1. WHEN I BUNDLE WITH OTHERS THERE WILL BE SOMEONE THERE TO PICK ME UP WHEN I FALL DOWN Eccl. 4:10 If one person falls, the other can reach out a...

On Sunday, we talked about the importance of belonging. We talked about the fact that we were created for relationships. That we are better together. That God didn't create you to be alone. When we feel lonely, that's when we are tempted to draw back and further isolate ourselves, even though that's the opposite of the solution. In fact, the enemy wants you to be isolated...

The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health released a study that said executive stress costs the country twenty billion dollars a year. They estimate the total cost of stress on the work force is now a hundred billion dollars a year. That's a lot of money. Is there an antidote to surviving your stressed out schedule? Today we're looking at "Surviving My Sched...

Loneliness is rampant in our society. It's the number one emotional problem. Everybody needs friends. It's part of God's plan for our lives. When God made the world, He put man in a perfect environment and said, "It is not good for man to be alone." Sometimes the people we call our friends aren't really friends at all. Some people in our life are more like a ministry pro...

God is love.And all love comes from God.And we love because God loves us. 1 John 4:7-8 "Love comes from God for God is love." God loves you so much that he sent Jesus on a mission of love with a message of love. The Bible doesn't say God has love; it says God is love. Love is his nature; God is love. God created the entire universe. He created this planet; he created ...