Coming to Jesus is scary. Let’s just admit that up front. The idea of letting someone into your life Who will know you more intimately than you even know yourself can be terrifying! Pastor Ed’s message today reminds us, though, that Jesus is just waiting patiently on the other side – knowing everything already – but letting us through our defenses at Him. All the while He is reminding us of the freedom of stepping close to Him, and loving us even with our problems and dark secrets!

We all know what it is to hunger and thirst in the physical sense, but have you ever considered that you also do this in a spiritual sense? Today’s message focuses on that deep down desire that people have for something more – some meaning for life, some relationship that we know is better than what we have now. Pastor Ed shares the story of the woman at the well to help remind us that the longing we feel can only be completely satisfied by one person, one relationship: Jesus!

Pastor Ed today reminds us about the purpose behind the Ten Commandments, and really all the commandments Jesus gave us: they are not suggested activities! These are the basis by which Christians should be living! Now, as sinful people, we will never get these right the first time, and will never be perfect. That’s where awareness and repentance are so necessary, but also where grace and redemption come into play. God will forgive if we ask, and we should do so, often!

We don’t like to discuss the wrath of God. It’s much easier to only focus on the loving God…which, of course, He is! Pastor Ed’s message today, while potentially difficult, also reminds us that God isn’t just passively sitting by and letting evil take over the world! God will judge the wrong in the world, but His timing is better than what we think it should be. And really, if you think about it, the wrath of God is also motivated by His love – and His goal is always to show everyone the power of that love!

Have you ever wondered why God would want to save us? Why He would ever want to speak to us, let alone send His Son as a sacrifice for us? Pastor Ed today touches on those questions, and gives us an answer: LOVE! God loves us so much and desires to have a relationship with us, and toward that end gave us the greatest opportunity of all time: the chance to have an intimate relationship with our Creator! Jesus came to give us the chance at life, and freedom, and blessings beyond measure!

Did you catch that? “God’s love is an action toward us, not a reaction to us”. Pastor Ed today spends time on one of the most famous verses of the Bible – John 3:16. The point is this: God will love us no matter what. Really, NO MATTER WHAT! Nothing we can do wrong, and nothing we do right, can diminish or change the amount of love that God is giving us! He wants to pour blessings out on us, to show us how precious we are to Him! Remember this: God will never, NEVER stop loving you!

What is “being born again”? Today’s message with Pastor Ed takes a look at this kind of bizarre statement, posed to a religious man by Jesus himself. Being born again isn’t a physical thing; rather, it is as Pastor Ed just said: the recognition that we are never enough. We will never be able to do enough to be good enough. We desperately need grace, and a Savior, and when we accept this and accept Jesus, we become something completely new! We are transformed into children of God!

Pastor Ed puts it out there plainly in today’s message: repentance needs to be a way of life for a believer! We are made very aware by the law that we don’t measure up, and there is no way we can ever be “good enough” to reach Heaven on our own. This realization is why we needed Jesus to come to earth and die for us! And having accepted that He did this for us, we need to constantly be grateful for salvation! This spurs us to live the holiest life we can, and to ask for forgiveness when we fail!

Jesus didn’t come to earth for His own gratification. Really, think about it – would you want to go somewhere if you knew you would be rejected, tortured, and forced to die by one of the most horrendous means possible? Jesus, however, was completely caught up in His Father’s will and purpose, and therefore was willing to go through all of that for the future good that it would do! And the greater good continues into us, and can continue through us to others, if we too get caught up in God’s will for all people!

As human beings, we are constantly looking for approval. We have egos that we feel we need validated, and typically, we will look to other human beings to fulfill that. We measure ourselves by others, and in the end we are left feeling unsatisfied and empty. The only one we should be looking for approval from is God, as Pastor Ed reminds us in today’s message. God’s standard is the yardstick we should be using, not what other people say or do. God’s purpose is all that matters!