Were you surprised by Jesus in today’s reading (Matthew 10:32-39) when He said: “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword” (v 34)? It’s hard to imagine Jesus with a sword.

For most of us, a cup of cold water is no big deal. If we’re thirsty, we go to the faucet & fill a glass with water. If we want it cold, we get some ice from the fridge. It’s not much to us. We don’t even think about it. It’s no big deal.

If God ever truly begins to do things we’re not used to, this missional gathering, this community, indeed this world as we know it, will be turned upside down.

Friends—life is a war zone—and every day we're on the battlefield. The only way you can win this battle is through God’s strength. But to receive God's strength you must:

Are you still drinking from the bottle & trying to learn your spiritual ABCs? Or have you moved on to solid food? If the answer to the last question is yes, then you ought to be a teacher!

As we study the story in Luke 3, keep in mind that Luke presents Jesus as the perfect man & the model we should follow. In order to fully understand what happened in the wilderness, we need to start before the temptation & continue after the temptation.

Compassion is not something you talk about. Compassion is something you do.

While God sometimes sent his children to Egypt to protect them, he always delivered them from Egypt later. So, Moses & the children of Israel came “out of Egypt” in the great passage through the Red Sea. We need Egypt for protection, but we are never meant to stay there forever.

How would you like 2022 to be a truly great year—a blessed year—day after day after day?? Psalm 1 tells us how we can be continually blessed every day. In just 6 short verses we learn the secret of the life God blesses—and it has nothing to do with New Year’s resolutions.

There are several parts of the Bible that many people tend to overlook. Why? A couple of reasons I guess: 1) We don’t know what to do with it. 2) It’s not often read in public. 3) Hardly anyone ever memorizes these passages & 4) to my knowledge they have never been set to music. Matthew 1 is a great example.