We can so easily get caught up in and even consumed by the blistering pace of our culture. When we do, the risk of sinful choices increases, our emotions are inconsistent and we become less productive/effective. Additionally, we end up empty on the inside and disconnected from God. God invites us to slow down and catch our breath by stopping the constant push for more, keeping the Sabbath day holy, staying close to Jesus.

This message will be similar to some of what we taught about attitude in the Philippians series. We can choose to be unforgiving, ungrateful, unholy and unloving or we can choose to trust God, remain positive and live in joy. We can’t always choose our circumstances but we can choose our attitude.

This will basically be a salvation/living in freedom message with the emphasis on freely receiving and experiencing God’s grace rather than getting stuck in the routines and rituals of life-draining religion. God invites us to a life-giving love relationship with Him, not a heart-killing, works based religious regimen.

When we feel disappointed with the story that is our lives, it can be a wake up call to let God write His story for us. God wants us to find our story in His story and He always makes a way for that to happen. God’s story for us always has a redemptive ending, regardless of how many regrets we have. Our part is simply to join Him, accept Him and serve Him.

In Isaiah 6, Isaiah had a God encounter that opened his eyes to see how God could use him despite his pain, his failures and how he saw himself. God wants to reveal Himself to us so that we can be changed by Him and empowered to do what He created us to do.

Elisha’s life seemed like it didn’t count for much. His solution was to give his best effort right where God put him. From his life we learn that when we give our best in obscurity, God sees and God rewards. Our faithfulness in the small things opens the door for God’s bigger things plus when we give our best in the natural, God will do the supernatural.

Sometimes God takes His time in fulfilling His promises to us. When He does, we must continue to trust Him, even if it seems impossibly ridiculous and even if no one else in our circle does. As we wait, we must be careful to not get ahead of God, to focus on how God is growing us and to trust that what God will do in His time will be worth it.

Jonah made some bad choices that we can learn from. We can recover from our bad choices if we’ll take responsibility for them, repent from them, and embrace God’s grace. Thankfully, bad choices do not disqualify us from being used by God. We are called to go into our homes, jobs, schools, communities, and more with the gospel message.

Sometimes life doesn’t go as we planned. From Jacob we learn that it’s best in those seasons to give all control to God so He can give us a new strength, identity and joy. To get there, we must remember that brokenness often precedes break-through, that finding ourselves requires losing ourselves and that fulfillment only comes when we find ourselves on God’s terms.

Jesus' death on good Friday gave us heaven when we die but His resurrection on Sunday gives us life now!