Pastor Todd Hunter - Kindness and Forgiveness

The goal of our salvation is to recover the image of God. - Dennis Okholm

We don't come to Christ as a blank canvas. We come to Christ malformed in need of spiritual transformation.

Christianity is not, first and foremost, about understanding bullet points of doctrine. It's about 'a way of life'.

Fundamental to being born-again is this process of putting off the old and putting on the new.

God is not going to make you into a robot. You're going to have to cooperate.

Our will is like congress. It's constantly being lobbied by our emotions and thoughts. They badger our wills.

While you are fully and completely an individual, you do not derive your most fundamental meaning from you as an individual and the gifts you have. We get our most fundamental meaning and function from Christ and His body. He is the head and we are the body.

What if God likes you? What if God really LIKES you?

The dominant world view, within the last few generations, is that the world is terrifying. And if you really new reality, you would fear.

No person of any courage would bail out on this reality by believing in God. People of real courage face the fact that life is meaningless, and you do your best with what you have. Following Jesus is not a popular answer. Jesus seems like a superstition in this world of "hard, cold science."

Most people do not think Jesus will get them where 'they' want to go.

Is there a way to totally lean on God while standing as a passionate individual in the image of God?

It begins by answering this question: "What does it mean to lead a group of people who are supposed to be following someone else?"

Paul is letting people in on a secret, which was hidden for ages and generations; and Paul himself is to be the one to take this news around the world.  Paul goes on to talk about the secret, that Jews and Gentiles stand on the same ground before God because of Christ.  The dividing wall has been destroyed.  They get the same offer, same help, same promises in Christ Jesus.  God has called us, like Paul, to be ambassadors and representatives, inviting others to be reconciled to God.  We are servants and stewards of God's grace.

It might seem counter-intuitive these days, to many people, that church is the place that one might go to find spiritual growth.

Continuing in the series "Summer in Ephesus" pastor Todd Hunter talks to us about "grace". Knowledge, simply put, is that which allows you to deal successfully with reality. Reality doesn't care what we think.