Recent Headlines illustrate what happens if companies forget their identity and try to re-brand their image. That same chaos happens when people who’ve committed to follow God forget their identity and try to re-brand to become accepted. The question is how do you follow God in a world that doesn’t?

When we first committed ourselves to Follow God’s Lead in our life, we thought God would open every door. It can be hard to accept, when it doesn’t happen like we expect! But why would you follow God when He keeps on closing doors? What do you do when the God who’s supposed to make a way, seems like He’s just in the way? The events in Acts 16 teach us not to allow disappointment to disengage us from Following God.

The bible emphasizes the importance of living in unity with others. Psalm 133:1 says, ’How good & pleasant it is when God’s people dwell together in unity!’ John 17 says, 'Jesus prayed His followers would be united, so the world would know He was sent by God.' Ephesians 4:3 tells us, ‘Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit thru the bond of peace.’ But sometimes, people who are committed to following God, just disagree! That issue is at the heart of Acts 15, which we will be exploring today.

We typically assume that if you do good, you get good. But life doesn’t always work out that way, does it? When that happens, it’s easy to get discouraged and give up even trying to do good! Today we see this in action in Acts 14.

Everything has a lifespan regardless of how useful it is. The same is true of people. Acts 13:36 tells us that David served God's purpose in His own generation, then he died and was buried with his ancestors. His body went back to dust. The only question that matters is: ‘Will you serve God’s purpose in your time?’

Have you ever felt like not praying? We go through moments of wondering, “why would he bother listening to me?” We may even go through moments of being mad at Him. Sometimes we don’t have the words to say because we’ve already said everything that we can think of. Today we look at Acts 12 to give us some encouragement during these moments.

It’s always a challenge to teach kids how to share and it always seems like the first word toddlers learn to say is, “NO!” followed by a close second which is the word, “MINE!” Children will do that in an attempt to be in control of their life. This is also the case for those who are younger in Christ! How do we overcome this and mature as believers?

Sometimes things happen that we don't see coming. In fact, the Bible is filled with stories of people who were caught off guard by God. The question is, are you committed to follow Him, even if what He asks you is shocking?

No doubt there would be as many descriptions as there are people in attendance! Looking at Acts 9:31, "The church had peace throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria, and it became stronger as the believers lived in the fear of the Lord. And with the encouragement of the Holy Spirit, it also grew in numbers." This, of course, sounds wonderful. We look at Acts 9 to see how this happened!

Welcome to summer, when families make vacation plans? Like Clark Griswold, many of those family trips will be to Amusement Parks. Regardless of the destination, riding the Roller Coaster is almost a rite of passage. You could say the same thing about learning what it means to follow Jesus! Just like Roller Coasters, following Jesus has a lot of ups, downs & unexpected curves.