God wants to be intimately involved in all your decisions. That doesn’t mean you need to pray over what color shirt you wear today, but when it comes to relationship choices and other areas of your life that reflect on Him and your relationship with Him, He should be a part of it – in fact, He should be central to the process. As Pastor Bill will challenge us in today’s message, make a practice of seeking God and listening to His guidance as your first step when it’s time to make a decision.

Community is one of the greatest gifts and necessities that God’s given us. In the beginning, when God created Adam, he was in a perfect state – sinless and exactly as God intended Him to be – yet Adam needed something else… he needed companionship. Satan will do his best to directly attack us in that area of weakness. As Pastor Bill will remind us in today’s message, God is always with us, and He’s put other people in place to support and walk with us through our struggles.

God uses people of all ages and maturity levels, with widely varying talents, skills, and personalities. He gifts us in different ways, and as you develop in your faith, you’ll find that He uses you in new ways. As Pastor Bill will warn in today’s message, you may have a tendency to write off others or write yourself off as not being usable by God, but that’s never true. Submit yourself to Him and be intentional about seeking out His will for your life - no matter what stage of the journey you’re in.

What are your top priorities? For some, it may be their families, for others their careers, and for others, it may simply be their own pleasure. Those are earthly treasures. That doesn’t mean they’re bad things…family for example is an amazing gift from God, and careers can be used to bring Him glory and accomplish a lot of good, but as Pastor Bill will challenge us in today’s message, bringing God glory should be our ultimate priority. That’s our purpose, and we’ll be rewarded with eternal riches in Heaven.

Has God spoken to you recently? You may not be aware of it, but the answer is yes. He speaks to all of us regularly. The problem is that many of us aren’t listening. If you are listening, that’s great, but there’s another step still – you need to do what He’s telling you to and be who He wants you to be. As Pastor Bill will challenge us in today’s message, it’s time to be the Church that God has called us to be. Enough sideline Christianity. It’s time to get up and follow Jesus where He leads us.

Our ultimate purpose is to glorify God. He created us for His pleasure, and He gave us free will so we could choose whether to worship Him or not. If you choose to reject that calling, you’re rejecting life with Him and choosing eternal death. That’s not His fault. As Pastor Bill will point out in today’s message, if you choose to accept that invitation, you’re choosing eternal life and He freely gives it to you. Not only will you experience that gift after this life, but He’ll provide peace and purpose in this life as well.

Have you ever received a homemade gift that you knew required a lot of time, thought, and energy on the part of the giver? It may not have been expensive, and it may not have been something very useful or something you had asked for, but knowing that they gave their time and energy to make it made it incredibly meaningful. While God does call us to give of our money and material resources, some of the best gifts we can give Him are our time and energy, by spending time with Him and living out His mission.

Even after you die to self as we’re called to do by Christ, you’ll still have freedom to make choices. As Pastor Bill will clarify in today’s message, you don’t become a robot, controlled by the Holy Spirit whether you want to be or not. You still must choose to follow the Holy Spirit as He leads. He won’t force you into anything. You choose to dedicate yourself as a temple of His Holy Spirit. Your obedience is an act of love in response to the love and grace He gave you through Jesus.

Some people fear or hate Christianity because they see it as a life controlled and restricted by rules that a distant Deity put in place. That’s a lie from the enemy. Christianity isn’t about the rules. It’s not about a prescribed way of living. It’s about having relationship with your loving Creator. Today, Pastor Bill will remind us that God went to great lengths to have this relationship, and living a righteous life is a natural response to the incredible grace and love that has been given to you.

You have to know your weaknesses and be prepared to make big changes in order to walk with Jesus. As Pastor Bill will illustrate in today’s message, the transition from a life in the world into a life in the Kingdom of God is a complete one-eighty. Sadly, many of your friends that remain in the world will be resistant to your new faith and lifestyle. As much as you love them, they may try to pull you back into sin. It’s vital that you’re secure in Jesus and equipped to resist sin before you spend time with those people.