Thanks for being with us this morning! At Casas, it doesn't matter what your story is, your background, or the stage of life you're in - you are valued and accepted just as you are. We believe everyone has value and purpose and is loved by God. We're glad you're here!

When we sing "O Holy Night," we are reminded that people are of great value to God, there is always hope on the horizon, and Jesus is good news for everyone! In the story of Jesus's birth, we are reminded that God is constantly seeking to love us and set us free, which is good news indeed. If we don’t embrace the good news for ourselves, as described in Mark 1:14, we can get in the way of the good news for others. Let it be a blessing to us and everyone this season that there is hope because Jesus can carry the weight of it all. 

Outward Facing means finding a way to intentionally do good and to keep doing good in multiple different ways. In Galatians 6:9, Paul encourages the early church to “not become weary in doing good.” Sometimes, it takes time to see the benefit of all we’re trying to do for others. We have to trust that God is at work in the good and unique things we are doing in this world and trust His timing, just as a farmer trusts that there will be a time of harvest.

Thanks for being with us this morning! At Casas, it doesn't matter what your story is, your background, or the stage of life you're in - you are valued and accepted just as you are. We believe everyone has value and purpose and is loved by God. We're glad you're here!

In this series, we’ll discuss different hurts, habits, and hangups that can become a sticking point in our lives. We might find God in the midst of them or move past them. Either way, we will learn more about how to process these impactful experiences.

The first week in this series, we talked about different hurts we’ve experienced. This week we explored habits and how we can break away from the various habits we have. We looked at Genesis 24 - 33 and what we can learn from the life of Jacob. There are three things that can help turn habits around: awareness of the habit, a fuller vision of what we do want if that habit wasn’t in the way, and relationships with others that pull us forward to life beyond that habit we’ve created. 

What does it mean to create the kingdom of God around us when faced with political issues? They aren’t small concerns, either, especially when the subject directly affects us. It makes sense that our hearts are caught up because it’s all around us. We may feel our only hope is getting the right person in office. However, our hope is not found in the results of an election and the kingdom of politics. It is far too small of a kingdom to anchor the heart of the church. 

In this series, we’ve established that we live in a world of competing kingdoms all around us and within us. How do we then advance the kingdom of God? Jesus and John the Baptist discuss this in Matthew 11. The kingdom of God is already being ushered into this world right now if we anchor ourselves in Jesus’ way of transformation over force. We follow Jesus because He changed our hearts, which doesn’t happen through force. 

There are competing kingdoms all around us and within us. That is why it is important that when we read the Lord’s Prayer, we recognize when Jesus says, “Thy kingdom come.” He is sharing with us what to set our hearts towards. The kingdom you desire is the kingdom you create. Then, what does it mean to build the kingdom of God? This first week we compared the kingdom of religion the Pharisees were focused on building versus the kingdom of God that Jesus built and what it looks like to be part of Jesus’ kingdom.