God Centered Life

Does God exist? In the church, we think the answer is obviously yes. But when you engage with people outside the church, you find many people who wrestle with that question. We need to formulate an engaging, biblical response to that question that helps people who think there's not enough evidence. Ironically, Psalm 14 is a hymn to the aetheist.

Paul says the number one reason people reject the reliability of the Bible and choose false teaching is not because there is some great, secret, intellectual problem with the Bible's teaching. As much as the controversial authors today want to persuade us that they're discovering something new, really they are just rehashing questions that have been asked and answered many times, and then putting them out in popular form.

Influenced by the fantastical myths of Greek culture, teachers were encouraging young Christians that if they really wanted to grow spiritually, they must have a mystical "buzz"some kind of lightning-bolt experience. In contrast, this passage encourages us to place our confidence, rationally and spiritually and with good reason, in the truth of God's Word.

Some of us have had good fathers and some have not. But the father figure is important; we all need to feel that we fit into a spiritual lineage.

He is a God of love and mercy and will receive those who confess. We must be honest and real before Him. We need to learn how to live for Jesus even in areas of our lives, like our sexuality, which we don't often talk about.

We live in a world that is quite like Hosea's in many ways, with our obsession with sexuality. There are truths in this passage that apply directly to today's world. The prophet Hosea stands as a model for us, and this message is quite relevant to us.

There is an evangelistic power in living generously. When a Christian gives to the work of the Gospel, living below the standard of living that they could live otherwise, they are sending a message that they believe in something bigger than this world, and people notice and it has a huge impact.

God loves truly joyful Christians. God doesn't give you a duty that he doesn't also intend to be a delight. It is a duty to give, but God loves you to be cheerful, so He set up the system in such a way that when we give, it will be good for us. Giving opens up avenues of joy, and generosity is an opportunity to be a part of what God is doing.

It's easy to be prejudiced without realizing you are. The Gospel is a Gospel for all nations. It crosses cultures. Our challenge is to take the Gospel to every tribe and nation. For every people group, Jesus is the answer.

We do need to work hard to grow as Christians, but that is not the same as supplementing Christ with "religiocity". Paul points out some things that we don't need to be doing.