Before God moves on a community He looks for a heart that He can confide in. When we begin to seek the Lord in prayer God will reveal Himself to us as the God who manifests His mercy in the context of judgment. Even in the midst of judgment He chooses to be identified with humankind.
There is something about the voice of God when He calls your name. God is calling out to His church so we can let go of the past, not be bound by the future and go forward in the love and mercy of Jesus. When God speaks resurrection life follows.
Why do more people come to church on Easter, but have little interest the rest of the year? Like Nathaniel, they're skeptical about faith. They feel alienated, hostile toward the church, and want to live a lifestyle that doesn't align with the church. In this evangelistic message, Pastor Gary Wilkerson asks the skeptics to consider reconsidering faith.
We all have a great calling from God, but most of us hold back. We're only willing to give Jesus our Sunday mornings and the dog scraps of our life. We haven't fully surrender our life to Him. Like some of the tribes of Israel, we end up settling in the Wilderness rather than entering into the Promised Land. It's time to stop holding back!
Money can be a hot topic in the church today. There is a small camp of Christians that take a vow of poverty—selling all that they have and viewing money as evil. The other extreme, and the most prevalent in the church today, is a vow of prosperity, in which abundant material blessing from God is seen as a testimony of His goodness. In Luke 16 we see a completely different view on wealth from Jesus. He doesn't focus on how much or little we have, but is more concerned with how we use what has been given to us.
No one starts life wanting to be amazingly average and live a life of no consequence. We are created to build something significant. God gives each of us abilities in which we are to operate, excel and increase. Jesus invites us to something truly amazing. It's time to stop the excuses and renounce everything that is not part of our calling.
In today's culture, most of us are too busy. Busyness in our generation is almost a badge of honor, but what if it's a sign of an overbooked, overcommitted and overstressed life? Moses taught the people of Israel to leave margins, or space in their lives; and we see this lived out in the life of Jesus. When we fully trust our time into God's hands and allow Him space to operate, we may actually find that more gets done with less exhaustion, stress and anxiety.
Nicky Cruz shares about God taking us from nobody to somebody. God doesn't care about your age, gender, race or social standing and often uses the weak and foolish of this world to confound the strong and wise.
Many today perceive power as a bad thing. The misuse of power by tyrants and others has corrupted our perception of it. We see in scripture though, that God has given us a spirit of power. It is a good thing! Now we must fan into flame that gift of God.