Our sin has been cast away, and we no longer own it. Jesus tricked the enemy into killing him, that our blood is no longer required for the bill that needed paid - Jesus paid for it, and more. We now have so much more than we think we have, but especially the cleansing of sin.

Many of us have the challenge of moving the knowledge of Jesus uniting us into right relationship with God from our head to our hearts. When our minds have any qualifying thing for us to be acceptable to God, we are not trusting in the blood of Jesus that has made us right. Instead, quit making your salvation about yourself and approach Him via the blood, not anything I can account for.

All of us can have a deeper revelation of it. It began in the Garden of Eden and continues all throughout Scripture as an undercurrent: sin leads to death, and everything points to the blood of Jesus. His blood is meant to be experienced by us.

When the Lord frees us from sin, the power of that sin is weakened, but through spiritual warfare, the enemy will not go down without a fight. We can then walk alongside Jesus for freedom, no longer trying to walk a tightrope of obedience.

The endless cycle of following the rules and failing is an exhausting reality that God frees us from. Instead of that, we have been given liberty and freedom in the Spirit to not be driven by shame or glory, but rather connection to Him.

Jesus' obedience to the Father unto death gave us not only the way to be obedience, but the ability to do it, through His righteousness. Obedience by anything else other than His righteousness is simply right vs. wrong. Instead, the love of God draws us to obedience.

Obedience is often thought of in terms of right vs wrong, or doing the exact thing that God tells us. But Pastor Nick kicks off our series on obedience with an encouragement to view obedience from God's perspective: by His righteousness given to us, we now get to walk alongside Him in covenant.

Upon reflection of what the Lord has done for us and led us in in 2024, Pastor Nick gives us a word of encouragement and direction for the new year.

The third week of Advent brings us to God loving the world that He must enter into it. The early church so manifested love that it drew the poor and sick in. Christmas is a wonderful season to reflect on God's movement towards us and not based on how we're doing personally.