In Ezra 4-6 the people of God encounter adversity simply for trying to obey God and follow Him. Jesus promised His followers today that they would at times face serious adversity for following Him. We walk through some of those challenges today as well as how we persevere through them.

The books of Ezra-Nehemiah show how God is faithful to bring His people home out of exile. His faithfulness then speaks to His great faithfulness to His new people today. In addition, the priorities that the people of God showed in returning from exile teach us about our priorities and need to worship God today.

Many of us are familiar with the phrase "the writing on the wall," but perhaps we don't know that it came from this story in Daniel chapter 5. Within the story, we learn God's warning to all the powerful in the world, and all who choose to remain pridefully independent from the One who made us and loves us.

We are never threatened with our lives for following Jesus in this country, but the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego not bowing down to Nebuchadnezzar's golden image tells us a story of people willing to die for their faith. In their story, we are challenged to examine our own faith, but more than that to consider the God who stays faithful through all the fire we go through.

The Bible tells us we are to live between completely retreating from culture and completely embracing culture if we are to stay faithful to Jesus. But how do we practically do that? We walk through Daniel's example in chapter 1 to see how.

It's easy at Christmastime to focus on the meek and humble nature of Jesus coming as a baby. But the prophet Isaiah paints a different picture of the Messiah, one of a coming king whose character reign will be like no other. Join us as we explore this often unforeseen side of Christmas.