Partial Surrender, disgruntled obedience, and misguided perception produce religious “angry birds”. The religious become fully alive when they repent of their religion and return to the Father.

Through the story of a rebellious son, his wayward journey, and his eventual return home, we witness firsthand the love of the Perfect Father. The lost become fully alive when they return to the Father.

Our God relentlessly loves us and pursues us. When we connect with both the person and the purposes of Jesus, only then will we become fully alive.

Do you ever feel like you are just going through the motions? Ever have that suspicious feeling that something is missing? Jesus promised us a different kind of life. He came so that we could have abundant and eternal life – not just eventually, but right now. Are you barely alive or fully alive?

What’s that smell? We all have some dirty laundry in our lives, but rather than allowing it to separate and isolate us from others we need to invite other people into our lives to walk the journey with us.

Growing up we always had normal clothes and the sacred clothes you only wore on Sunday, the “church clothes”. For many people going to church is an event on Sunday that you where special clothes for. Here at Meadowland Church we are not interested in creating “church attenders”, we want to create disciples who make disciples.

One of the things I love about Meadowland Church is that we are a church of “doer” and hard workers. We must be careful that we do not get so busy “doing things for Jesus” that we miss spending time with Him worshipping Him. Some times we have to put down the dish rags and sit in His presence.

When the hamper is packed full of dirty laundry doing the laundry seems like an overwhelming, time consuming task. The same is true with our lives. When we allow our schedules to get too jam-packed we tend to skip the really important things like getting into God’s Word with our families.

Often we are quick to praise God when times are good and quick to cry out to Him when times are troubling. When we look at the story of Habakkuk we see a truth that our response and posture towards God can and should be a constant praising and crying out to Him in all things at all times. It is true that we live in a world with evil but the greater truth is God is good. We live in a physical world that moves towards chaos and decay but we have an eternal father in heaven that has, is, and will continue to act in the lives of His people to bring about His perfect will, and that is good.

Everyone lives by faith of some kind. The question is “what or who is your faith in?” At its most basic foundation, we can either place faith in ourselves (with our own limitations and faults) or we can place faith in the one true God who is infinite, all powerful, all knowing, and all present. Part II of this message will explore some of the characteristics of a faith in man as opposed to a faith in Jesus.