There is a great deal of church hopping going on today, and now this issue has hit the fever pitch as podcasts and church online have given our consumeristic onlookers more options to choose from.

They have their shopping lists of what they are looking for and expect from today's church. What is extremely sad is that most of what they are looking for is not biblically founded. It's about programs, methods, and styles of worship. It's about shorter messages that are non-confronting. 

But then those who are a little more familiar with Scripture, will hear a message from Acts chapter 2 and realize that the right answer is described here after the events of Pentecost. 

For church folks, this is the best description of what church should be, and the church we should all want. But behind the answer we know is right, is the lack of commitment and sacrifice to make this kind of church a reality.

God said that He would build His church, but many churches thought that God needed a little help. As we read through these few sections of Scripture today, take a second look at what God intended for the church to be, and ask yourself, is this what we are becoming?

The gospel is the power of God for salvation! But the power of the gospel doesn't come from our persuasive words or wisdom. The transformational power comes from the revelation of that gospel through the Holy Spirit. 

We are to be the voices crying out in the wilderness preparing the way of the Lord to reveal His salvation to those He draws to Himself. We are the instruments of reconciliation as the love of Christ controls us, freeing the Holy Spirit to work through us.

The word of God is sharper than a two-edged sword piercing as far as the soul and the spirit. 

Our faith is manifested in the power of the gospel and the working of the Holy Spirit bringing revelation to the glory of God in the face of Christ. 

Much of the deadness and lukewarmness in the church today is the result of man attempting to do something that only God can do through the gospel. Many who are sitting in pews today are holding onto a man-made salvation. 

They are searching the Scriptures to discover eternal life but are unwilling to come to Christ for the life they are searching for. They are not coming to Christ because they have seen the glory of Christ and the depravity of their sin, but rather they are searching for some self-preserving approach to avoid being crucified with Christ and dying to themselves so that Christ might become their lives. 

If you are uncomfortable with what I am saying, I would plead with you to look closely at what God's word says, and allow the Holy Spirit to reveal to you the glory of Christ and the power of the gospel.

One of the Greatest Disconnects of God's calling upon men today is found in Gal. 2:20. "We have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me. 

There was a dramatic shift in who we are and how we live life on the day that Jesus Christ came to take up residence in our lives. For many men, not much changed on that day, if that day indeed happened. Many still live pretty much as they always did except now they attend church and call themselves Christians. 

God has told us that He has come to abide within us, and we are to abide with Him if we ever hope to live out this new life that He has called us to. What does it mean to abide in Christ, and what does that kind of life look like? 

Open up your Bibles and let the Holy Spirit get real and personal with you, as we discover what the gospel has to say about abiding with Christ.

Did you prepare for today? Did you prepare for this week? How about this month or year? We would like to think that we are prepared for at least the day we are living in, and maybe we are to some degree. 

We need to take responsibility for the things that are in our lane each day, but we can never be prepared for everything that the world confronts us with. Our greatest discouragement comes from the fact that we have convinced ourselves that we must be prepared for everything. 

In the midst of all our preparations, we must acknowledge and humble ourselves to whatever preparations that God has already made beforehand. What God has prepared beforehand for us is so much greater than what we could ever imagine.

What we struggle with is, that what God has prepared for us usually never takes the path to get there as we thought it would. We miss many of the things that God has prepared for us because when God goes left, we continue going down the path of assumption straight ahead of us. 

God will always prepare our hearts for what He has prepared for us. 

Open up the gospel with me and discover the greater things God has already prepared for you!

Control or the lack of it creates such anxiety and fear in our lives. Even when we have done all that we can to create a safe and secure situation, we know living in the world we live in, we are never in complete control. 

The more we feel the control slipping through our fingertips, the more we try to control the things and people in front of us.  

The level of control in our lives indicates the level of faith we have or do not have in the God who is truly in control of everything around us. 

Faith is that which is hoped for, the conviction of things not yet seen. So, how much do we truly live by faith, and how much do we persist in wanting to control the outcomes? 

Is it any wonder why the Lord tells us repeatedly, to fear not, and wait upon the Lord?

Fear is a part of every one of our lives. Fear was given birth in the Garden of Eden when man sinned against God, and attempted to run and hide from Him. 
Today, fear comes in many shapes and sizes. It reveals itself when we least expect it. We can all be caught off guard and startled by some unexpected event or circumstance. Its when we allow that fear to remain in light of Who Jesus is, and what He has promised. 
Fear erodes our faith to the point we find ourselves attempting to control everything around us including the people that love us. The more we attempt to control the more things become unstable around us. That double-minded man syndrome. 
Let's open up the gospel and discover how we can disarm the fear that attempts to steal, kill and destroy our lives. 

We are all created in the image of God. But we are all born into this world with a sinful nature. We don't become sinners because we sin, we sin because we are sinners. The natural bent of our heart is toward the flesh and satisfying its desires.

When God calls for us to train up a child in the way he should go, it requires us as parents and adults to cultivate his heart to hear the voice of God and discover what glory He has created him for.

As we see the rise in numbers of kids who are leaving the church after the age of 18, and as we see more and more kids who have never heard of the gospel of Jesus Christ; even those just down the street from our churches, something has gone terribly wrong.

We have an obligation not only to our own children but to those who have been placed in our places of influence. Our neighborhoods, churches, schools, communities, and those who are being helped through non-profits and governmental programs.

With the breakdown of the family, this problem has become an epidemic in our country. Your children may have grown up and left the house, and you may or may not have grandchildren, but you have some children in your sphere of influence that you need to make the initiative to cultivate their hearts before the thief is able to kill, steal and destroy!

We can no longer turn a blind eye and make our comfortable and convenient excuses. What will the Lord find you doing when He returns?

The Titanic was one of the greatest shipwreck events of all time. It was said the architect and builder of the Titanic thought his ship was indestructible. Someone heard him say, that God Himself couldn't sink his ship.

The portion of the iceberg the Titanic saw above the water line was not a threat, it was the iceberg that extended below the water line that sank the ship. So many lives, families, and communities were drastically changed because of that event. 

Over the years we have seen prominent pastors and church leaders suffer shipwrecked lives because they drifted off course. These are very visible in the media today. But the even greater tragedy is, that there are so many others within the church that have drifted off course and found themselves broken, and their lives and homes destroyed. 

They seemed to be managing their faith that is above the water line, but underneath within the heart, there was danger lurking, Our hearts can drift into the shallows of our flesh, and worldly desires until the impact of the sin shatters our lives.

How can we avoid our faith becoming shipwrecked? Open your Bibles and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal how far our faith has drifted. Don't become another statistic for the world to use against the glory of God and His salvation.

How much time, energy, and resources do we expend in our efforts to justify our existence? We can feel so inadequate in who we are, that we find ourselves constantly on the defense as we self-justify the image we have portrayed to others around us. 

Our lies and insecurities have us working overtime in the futile game of justification. In and of our flesh we are incapable of maintaining the justifications we make. 

News flash! If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you have been justified already. You are not perfect or complete, but in the eyes of God, you have been justified, redeemed, and reconciled by the blood of Jesus Christ.   

Whatever life we live beyond the cross and the blood applied to our lives, should be acts of love, not attempts to justify ourselves before our loving God. 

If you are not living under the freedom that comes in Christ, or if you are not experiencing the peace that passes all understanding, you may have stumbled back into those fleshly efforts of self-justification again, and have fallen from grace. 

The justification that comes through Jesus Christ comes through His finished work on the cross. There is nothing more for you to add to that work. 

Matt 11:28-30 "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. 29 "Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls.  30 "For My yoke is easy, and My load is light."

Most of us who have been in church long enough have heard many sermons and teachings on confession and repentance. Sometimes repetition can numb us to the reality of both of those. 

I believe a great deal of our complacency and apathy in the church today is not so much the repetition of the messages we have heard, but the lack of understanding and application of God's call for a full confession. 

The word confess means to agree with God! We may agree with God that we have sinned, but we are not confessing why we sinned, or why our hearts chose to live selfishly instead of depending upon God for His provision and timing.

If God knows the motive and intentions of our hearts, I'm sure the Holy Spirit is attempting to convict us of those motives and intentions. 

There can be no true repentance without a full confession. Complacency is formed in the soil of casual confession. The reason why most of us continue in the cycle of sin confess, sin confess, and sin and confess, without any real change of mind bringing about a change of action, is our superficial lives of confession.

Explore the Scriptures with me and let's discover God's design for a full confession.