God designed us for a personal relationship with Himself. The enemy’s great plan is to hinder us from finding that personal relationship with Almighty God. But, if the devil fails in his devious attempts to thwart our relational encounter with Jesus Christ, his next best option is to subvert the entire idea of relating to God. Our enemy has two distinct tactics to bring about this distortion: 1) To try and convince us that such a God/Man relationship is merely a subjective feelings-based extravaganza detached from Scriptural definition, or 2) to try and convince us that such a God/Man relationship is merely a head-relationship with the Bible. Both extremes lead to a breakdown. But, when the believer discovers a relationship with the Most High God that is informed and empowered by the indwelling Holy Spirit as well as discerned and maintained by a clear alignment with the Holy Scriptures—something wonderful takes place. God gave us two means of building and maintaining a relationship with Himself—the Holy Spirit and the Holy Scriptures. If a believer accepts one and disposes of the other, an imbalance takes place that eventually capsizes a walk with God. But if the balance of "both/and" is struck—anything is possible.

This is the fifth and final part of Eric Ludy’s series on Spiritual Gifts. This message dives into the deep end of the pool and attempts to deal with the extremely challenging issue of modern-day apostles and prophets in the Church. With the startling emergence of self-proclaimed “apostles" and “prophets" in today’s Christian landscape, this message is of critical importance for the Bible believer—supplying a context for these strange and mystifying concepts and how to Biblically address them.

Please note: we had an audio issue at the beginning of the message, so there is a room echo for the first two minutes of the message. Sorry for the inconvenience.

This is the fourth part to Eric Ludy’s series on Spiritual Gifts. This message addresses the cumbrous challenge of 1 Corinthians 14—talking about tongues and prophecy in a purposeful fashion as to not create division over the matter, but unity. This one chapter in Scripture has historically divided the Church of Jesus Christ right down the middle. And yet, ironically, the entire reason the Apostle Paul wrote it was to address division and to heal it.

This is the third part to Eric’s series on Spiritual Gifts. This message begins a journey into the difficult terrain of tongues and prophecy and helps enunciate the place these “sounds” have in the tapestry of Heaven. Whereas many Bible-loving believers secretly wish they could just delete the passages on tongues and prophecy from the Text in order to ensure a healthier Church—the answer is not deletion, but proper understanding. After all, God’s ways are perfect! And we mustn’t shy away from trusting His grand Revelation.

This is the second installment in Eric Ludy’s five-part mini-series on Spiritual Gifts. In this particular message, he focuses on what exactly “spiritual gifts” are, where they come, and what the Bible declares their purpose to be. Most Christians today shy away from both this topic and the functional benefit supplied by these gifts of grace. Ironically, Paul encourages us to have the complete opposite perspective on this matter. He exhorts us to “earnestly desire” them.

This is the first part of a five-part sermon series on Spiritual Gifts. Unfortunately, this topic is barnacled with controversy and many Christians would prefer just to ignore it altogether. However, the Biblical function of the Body of Christ together as one unit is essential to it actually succeeding in its purpose. And for that to happen, this topic can’t be ignored. There is a beautiful corporate coordination and exercise of Spirit-endowed grace that God designed us to walk in as the Church of Jesus Christ. But, first, we need to remove the barnacles from this awkward topic and freshly look at the ingenious plan God has for His people.

This message is all about identity. In today’s world it’s all too easy to passively accept cultural or sinful labels for ourselves and find our identity in those specific propensities. But as Christians, our identity is not meant to be defined by our proclivity, but by our position…in Christ! The “proclivity movement” is creeping into the Body of Christ and many believers are confused about who they really are. But in such a time as this, the Church must return to the Truth as its King, Counselor, and Guide. And only then can it help steer this misguided culture back in the direction of true identity.

The human propensity is to approach matters of the soul in an upside-down and backward fashion. Our instinct is wrong—there is something off in our understanding of spiritual matters. We believe that since it was human mistakes that created our problem, human good works will be our solution. And, in a distorted sense, we are correct. But, it’s not our good works, it is Christ’s good Work alone that solves the human riddle. Because of this upside-down and backward propensity, we often time spend a good deal of our spiritual lives attempting to fix things in our lives with human power that can only be fixed by faith in Jesus Christ. We fight battles in our own strength that can only be won by trusting and waiting on the Lord Jesus for victory. This can all be solved by making sure we enter the Door that Christ unlocked for us, instead of climbing in through the window of works, good deeds, and moral excellence.

Many people view difficulty as the antithesis of pleasure, happiness, and beauty. When in fact it is the catalyst for the most refined and exquisite version of all three. And this is what God explains in His Word. He reveals how He purposely leverages difficulty (trials, tribulations, and sufferings) in the construction of His saints. Just as fire can destroy, it can also warm. So, in like manner, difficulty can injure, but it can also strengthen. When difficulty is leveraged in faith and in agreement with God’s plans and purposes, it always strengthens. And, therefore, the Christian is exhorted by the Apostle James, to consider it pure joy when we face trials or difficulties of any kind. 

God gave us a grip. And with that grip we have to ability to grab ahold of things and not let go. It’s an amazing quality that God vested into His creation, but, when sin entered the picture, it corrupted this gripping ability and turned it into something that can lead to our destruction. For God designed us to use our grip to grab ahold of Life, Truth, Purity, and Love. Long and short, He intended us to grab ahold of Him and never let go. The Gospel introduces us to the power to let go of all counterfeit uses of our human grip and finally place it around the One who actually has Life to offer.