One of the joys of eating assorted chocolates is discovering what's at the center, because it's usually what makes the candy so great. In the same way, what lies at the center of the Bible is the very thing that makes it so valuable to living the best life you can. So what lies at the candy center of the Bible?

To many of us, the Old Testament is confusing and boring. How should we read it? Does it apply to our lives today? What might seem like an antiquated guidebook is actually something completely different.

As kids we were told what to think about the Bible by parents, grandparents, and Sunday school teachers. They informed our view of it. As a result, we based our understanding of the Bible not on reading it but on what we were told about it as children, and we all carry our childhood perspectives on the Bible into adulthood. Perhaps the perspective on the stories in the Bible begins by understanding the story of the Bible.

Whether it's an engagement, a pregnancy, a new job or a new relationship, there's something about good news that makes it incomplete until it's shared with other people. When it comes to having your soul set completely free, the announcement of God's grace is no different.

God's grace is so radical that when God sees us it's as if we had never sinned at all. But if we have grace, why should we do good? If our sin is taken care of and we don't have to earn God's acceptance, why do we need to stop sinning?

There are some Christians whose faith doesn’t seem to add much to their life. They believe in Jesus, but they have other things going on that are more important. They don’t really know or understand the Bible and feel a little lost. You may be one of those Christians. It may be that the only reason some people aren't experiencing the amazing, vast, wild and primal power of God’s grace is that they just don't understand what is really happening.

When it comes to grace and our ability to have a relationship with God there is good news and there is bad news. There is also news that may make you mad. But getting both the good and the bad can radically change your understanding of God's grace and how it applies to each of us.

Are you happy with the Christian life? Some of us live lives following the principles of faith, but still have a joyless Christianity. We follow Jesus but still feel trapped by habits and attitudes that keep tripping us up. Or we hit all the moral marks of living a godly life but find it unsatisfying. Perhaps a fundamental problem in our relationship with God is a lack of understanding the key thing that sets it up: grace.

Sometimes in life things just feel out of control. Like the circus act of spinning plates, it can feel like it’s all up to us to keep the them spinning up in the air. But what happens when things get too overwhelming? And what happens when this feeling creeps into our church world? Does God want us to be spinning plates, or is there an alternative?

We are told that God is everywhere, that we are always in his presence. If that's true, why do some people feel his presence more than others? If God is everywhere, why does he seem too hard to find at times? Is there a missing element in our search for God that could radically change how we experience his presence?