Asbury Church

Today is a gift from God. We’re not guaranteed tomorrow, but every breath that we breathe is proof that God has more for us.

We can try to hold on to our lives with a white-knuckled grip, relying on our own strength. We can even accumulate wealth and material possessions to give us a false sense of security.

There is freedom, however, in offering our lives and all that has been entrusted to our care back to God.

Letting go is the hard part.

How will you choose to live your life and lead those around you?

James gives us some pointed words about two types of wisdom—wisdom of this earth and wisdom from above.

Understanding the difference challenges us to evaluate and examine our ambitions and intentions. What type of wisdom you choose determines how you will lead your life.

How are you leading your family, workplace, community? Are you leading from a posture of wisdom from the Father, one that is pure, peaceful, full of mercy? Or are you striving and leading out of wisdom of this world, which displays disorder, disfunction, and vile practices?

James calls us to examine our hearts for the motives and intentions that lie within.

Did you know that your words have the power to change the trajectory of someone’s life? James talks about the power of our tongues in James chapter three, highlighting the impact of our words.

Have you ever been affected by someone's words? Have they made you doubt yourself or made you feel less than perfect? Or have they breathed life into you and encouraged you?

Words can bring life or death, whether they are spoken by us or others. How will you choose to use your words this week? How will you speak to strangers, neighbors, and loved ones?

There are three stages for complete, authentic belief in anything—especially Jesus. Many of us are stuck in Stage-2 and it is holding us back from what God has for us. The good news is it will never be easier to step into Stage 3 than it is right now.

What was the last trial or challenge you went through? What happened? How did you move forward? Did you press in closer to the Lord, or did you choose to withdraw? Are you in a trial right now?

James, in an intriguing manner, encourages us to find joy in our trials, assuring us that they lead to perfection and completeness. How can this seemingly contradictory advice be true?

What if the reward is not physically obtained through the trial but rather a spiritual reward as we walk through the fiery trials?

Are you willing to walk through trials with Joy?

The Tenth Commandment is the one about “coveting.” You can pass a law against murder and even a law against working on the sabbath, but how do you pass a law against desire? More importantly, why would the Lord include this command in the Ten?

The Tenth Commandment is there to teach me about the importance of learning to discipline my thought life, because desiring that which I have no legitimate right to have—my neighbor’s stuff, e.g.—is a sure way to both misery and destruction.

The opposite of coveting is gratitude. What if you woke up tomorrow with only that for which you thanked the Lord today?

The 9th Commandment tells us to be truth-tellers. Here are ten truths about lies.

The 8th Commandment is really simple: “Don’t steal.” As everyone knows, stealing is taking what doesn't belong to you. So, what's interesting about the 8th Commandment is that it implies that some things belong to me and some things don't belong to me.

Hence my question: “Which things are mine, and which things aren't?”

If you live your life trying to have control over the things that aren’t yours, you will be miserable and make other people miserable.

Let's take ownership over the things that belong to us, and let go of everything else.

This week in our Ten Commandments series, my wife joined me for our discussion about the 7th Commandment, the adultery one. But rather than just talking about adultery, we talked marriage more broadly. What makes a strong marriage?

The reason this discussion is for everyone is because when marriages are strong everybody wins.

Now, we don’t claim to be experts on marriage. In fact, we call ourselves The Unexperts. But, we shared some of what we’ve learned in hopes that it will help someone somewhere.

What If We Really Believed the Holy Spirit Could Transform Anyone's Heart?

For many of us, our lack of faith is not a failure to trust Jesus with our lives or a failure to believe he raises the dead.

No, for many of us our lack of faith is in believing that other people can change.

And yet, Pentecost is proof that the Holy Spirit can transform *anyone’s* heart!

In Ezekiel’s great vision of the valley of dry bones, even what seems impossible can come to pass because of the work of the Holy Spirit.

What if we lived and prayed and hoped as if we actually believed it?!