When we come to God, He doesn’t just redeem from this point forward, He redeems all. He redeems every aspect of our lives that we entrust to Him, and repurposes it for our good and His glory.

Today, go to God as your Father and be His child. Remember who He is, who you are, and who we are to one another as you pray “Our Father.”

If we grasp the enormity of the grace we’ve been given through what Jesus did for us, it allows us to surrender our will for God's will, and like Paul, our circumstances may throw us, but they will never crush us.

Praise God that because of the amazing grace that He has extended toward us, we’ve been found, and in Christ, we never have to be far from home again, because we have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

"But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved" Ephesians 2:4-5

When we were all dead in our trespasses, we were utterly hopeless...and yet God made us alive, not because of our own doing, but because of His great mercy and love for us.

We need to be ready not only for the return of the Bridegroom, but also need to be ready to love and serve our neighbors, the lost, the hurting, broken, and confused…to bring light into dark places. Church, we have a responsibility to be ready with light in a world that gets darker by the day because as it gets darker and darker, the light gets brighter.

Maybe today, you need to come home. Maybe you’ve wandered off, maybe you’ve been running, and today God is searching for you. And as soon as you take one step toward Him, He will run to you, embrace you, and say "Welcome home."

God can handle our biggest questions, our deepest sorrows, and our greatest fears. He not only allows it, but He also invites it. And the truth is, if we’ll make room to pay attention to those things and bring them before the Lord, we can come to know Him far more intimately through our pain than we ever will in prosperity.

This story tells us that life is not fair, and thank God it’s not because when we deserved justice, God gave us mercy. When we deserved dismissal and rejection, He chose us and welcomed us in. He pursued us, He came down to invite us into His vineyard – to give us a place to belong, a purpose in life, and a home in heaven where we will be with Him for all of eternity. It is a gift that we could not earn, and do not deserve.

It’s in the “not yet” where we find out if we really trust God, His character, and His timing.

Is there something you’ve stopped praying for because you’ve lost sight of God’s purpose in it? Something you'd spent so long begging God for and it still hasn’t happened, and what began as a fervent prayer just began to fizzle out? Well today, God wants to breathe new life into those little embers, and reignite that fire. He wants to give you hope to begin again, to pray again, and not quit. He is a good, gracious, and just judge, and you can trust Him even when the answer is "no" or "not yet."

Jesus uses this illustration because the reality is, we are all the first servant in the parable who owes a debt that cannot be paid. It's a picture of the sin that Jesus paid for us. Some of us refuse to forgive because we just don't feel like it or because we want the person to know how much they've harmed us, but some of us are unwilling to forgive others because we have forgotten how much we have been forgiven.

The danger is if we do not forgive from our heart, and we hold onto bitterness, resentment, and grudges, we are the one who pays the price for it. We will experience the torment of being consumed by the thing or the person we are refusing to forgive.

This is why biblical fasting is always intimately linked with the practice of prayer.  

In today’s message Pastor Rob outlines what fasting is, 7 benefits of fasting, and different types of fasting in preparation for our church-wide 21-day fast starting on Tuesday, January 10.

Do you want to increase your faith this year? Do you want to see God work miracles in and through your life? Do you need guidance from Him for this next season? Fast and Pray with expectancy that God will speak to you. 

Christ came down from heaven for you, of all people. He came so that you would know beyond the shadow of a doubt that God is with you, He is for you, not against you, and He loves you more than you could ever imagine. Like the father in Luke 15, God is waiting for you to take a step towards Him, and when you do, He runs to embrace you. That’s the good news Jesus came down to bring to the poor.

He took on your brokenness so that you could be made whole. He was rejected so you could be accepted. He was ripped apart on the cross so that the fragmented pieces of your heart could be mended back together.

He came so that you would have a life of purpose. Don’t waste the healing He came to give you. 

If we will trust God with the tangible, practical resources that He’s entrusted to us, and do it with cheerfulness, we believe God will begin to open doors that have been closed, soften hardened hearts, bring new life to those whose faith has long been cold and lifeless, and we’ll see revival again.

When we truly grasp who God is, and trust that He will provide like He says He will, that enables us to live generously to those around us.

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As followers of Christ, we need to know and understand what this Kingdom is so we can align ourselves with King Jesus, and measure success the same way He does. To live according to His value system, His will, His priorities, and His commands.

If we’re going to see change in our world, we first have to honestly assess which kingdom is dominating our values, priorities, and decision-making, and if it isn't the Kingdom of God, we need to turn back to Him.

God is calling the Church in America to repent, turn back to its first Love, and go out and make disciples that make disciples. But if we are going to see a disciple-making movement sweep through the Church in America, we first must see a prayer movement begin in the Church in America. 

Recognizing that it was our sin that put Jesus on the cross and that He bore the wrath of God on Himself so that we could be freed, chosen, given new life, and welcomed into His family, compels us to confess our sins, and to biblical hospitality by welcoming people into our lives and treating them as family.

All hospitality costs something, but the hospitality of Jesus cost Him everything. He gladly laid it down for us. Let that truth sink in and motivate you to do for others what He first did for you.

God created us to be in relationship with others! The enemy of our souls would love nothing more than for us to feel alone, anxious, and depressed, because he knows he can’t defeat the Church, but he can try to take us out one by one. That’s why we desperately need to be in deep abiding community with fellow believers beyond Sunday mornings where we are honest with one another, truly know each other and still love each other.

Jesus invites us into these disciplines the way He does in Matthew 11:28–30 when He says to learn from Me, and you will find rest. He’s inviting us into living freely, and lightly. Spiritual disciplines are not something we have to do, they should be something we enjoy doing because we desire to look more and more like Jesus.

When your heart is resting in that reality, when the Lord asks you as He did Isaiah in chapter 6… “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” you’ll be able to say, “Here I am! Send me.”

Pastor Rob challenged us with this question this morning because oftentimes we justify keeping a safe distance from those we view as different than us based on our assumptions, predetermined conclusions, broad brush stereotypes, rather than getting to know them. But if we do that, if we don’t look past our opinions and see them for who they are–a person created in the image of God–there’s no way we can truly love those around us.

If we are only about loving people who act like us, think like us, and believe like us, we will not actually reach anyone for Christ–we will not live on mission.

We’re called to live in the culture, but counter to the culture! Jesus sets the pace for us, it’s slow and unhurried. When we live like this, we can be present with Jesus and be present with the people that are in close proximity to us. 

Jesus is telling His followers this simple truth: Your love for God is revealed by your love for people. God wants you to express your love for Him by loving your neighbor, serving your neighbor, telling your neighbor about Him. If you’re a follower of Jesus, His desire is that you would be intentional about living on mission.

You don’t have to go to Africa to be on mission–God put you where you are for a reason, and we all have people around us who need to hear that they have purpose, and that are seen by a God who loves them and wants to be in relationship with them. Challenge yourself this week–simply begin to pray for your neighbor!

When hard times come, is your first thought, “it’s okay, I’ve got money” or “it’s okay, I’ve got Jesus.” See, we often look to money to give us value, security, meaning, and control, but when we do that we’re focusing on the wrong kind of wealth. Jesus Christ emptied Himself of all His rights and privileges, His wealth and possessions, even His own life, so that you could be spiritually rich with a true wealth that will never fade away – no amount of money on earth could ever compare to that.

It’s gotta be through Jesus Christ.

If you look to a spouse or children to be satisfied you’ll ultimately crush them under the weight of your demand that they meet all your needs or expectations of them, which can lead to your disappointment or unhappiness.

Having the gospel at your center is the only thing that gives you the ability to be a consistently humble, loving, and joyful person because you acknowledge that everything you’ve ever needed and desired is fully satisfied in the person of Jesus Christ.

Over the next 5 weeks we’re going to walk through what it looks like to truly make the gospel the center of your life as a follower of Jesus.

Jesus is saying here “if you trust in Me, my resurrection life will live in you!” In the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the power of death has been broken forever. The invitation is extended for anyone to receive new life through Him. It’s not about being good enough, or ready enough because it’s not about how good you are–it’s about how good He is. In fact, God already knows more about you than you even know about yourself. Before you were in your mother’s womb, God knew everything about you! He knows your sins, He knows your failures, and He brought you to this very moment anyway. He came because He loves you. He died because He loves you. He rose because He loves you. And today, right now, He wants you to know, He didn’t come to condemn you, He came so that you wouldn’t perish, but have everlasting life. Resurrection life.

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