I had a great USMC career that I am thankful to God for. But I missed a fair bit of it. Flight School and squadron life is pretty competitive. As a student you are graded on every flight and measured against the minimum standard and the other pilots. If you make the grade there, progressing through advanced qualifications means more competition. I was so focused on trying to "make it" that I often didn't see how much flying actually was. It was God's grace through the advice of my father that helped me see that I was missing my career while in the midst of it. "Take a look around," he said, "You'll only get to do it once. Flying really is a good job. Enjoy it!" Most people will miss the Resurrection of Jesus and the implications for their life. And that is a real tragedy. There are specific truths that God wants to show us if we are willing to see them. There are life changing truths if we are willing to take the time to look. In today's message we take a good hard look at the Resurrection and see what God wants to show us. If we miss these truths we miss everything. If we see these truths we see it all.

Your life is on one of two paths. The narrow path with Jesus and the wide one without him. There are not three paths or variations to the two. Two is all there are. Since this is case it makes all the sense in the world to ensure that we are on the narrow path. We can get a lot things wrong in life and it won't matter a whole bunch but get this one wrong and it has eternal consequences. In today's passage we look at the people who walk these respective paths. Instead of simply looking at the paths themselves we examine what a life looks like on the wide and the narrow path as a mirror to compare our own to. Which path are we on? Hold your life up to those who are each path and find out.

The disciples had been with Jesus for three years. There were hard times in storms at sea, there were good times with laughs at a wedding banquet and there was an expectation of a future glory with their Lord. This made Jesus' statement all the more jarring when he informed him that he had to leave and he didn't tell them how they could go along. In response to their concerns Jesus replied that they were not to look for a place but that they had found the destination in himself. In one of his most comforting and puzzling statements Jesus told his beloved disciples, and every follower of his through the centuries, that he is, "the way, the truth and the life." In today's message we look at this statement and discover the great help it gives us as we, like the disciples, are left to live our lives as Jesus is off preparing a place for us so that we can be with him forever. We can rest knowing that we don't have to find a destination but the destination we seek is a relationship we have already arrived at if we know him.

Spiritual warfare is a real war. Revelation 12:17 states, "Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus." The Bible is clear that war is upon us and we must therefore be armed appropriately for the conflict. Like the Navy SEAL or Army Ranger heading out fully armed for battle, the Christian needs to have their "armor" on and ready. In today's passage we look at the weapons God has given us and how we use them. We have what we need to handle spiritual warfare we need to go to work using our tools well.

There are two errors that people often run into when dealing with evil in the world and specifically when dealing with Satan and demons. The first error is to underestimate their power and existence. This error is common in the West as we have largely moved beyond the supernatural and now believe there is a natural or scientific explanation for everything. Therefore, the demonic is ignored and allowed to ruin lives without a fight. The other error is to overestimate the demonic. In this case there is a devil around every corner, there is a supernatural power behind everything and "the Devil made me do it." With this mindset, the individual is let off the hook of personal responsibility since the Enemy is responsible for their actions. Neither position is biblical. The demonic is real and we have resources in God to deal with their attempts to destroy. In today's passage we learn four foundational truths about dealing with our Enemy. Listen to learn how to engage rightly in Spiritual Warfare.

Raising kids is hard. And by "hard" we don't mean 100 push-ups is hard but 1,000 push-ups is hard. They don't come with an instruction manual. They can't explain to you a lot of the time what is bothering them. They can't articulate why they just did the crazy thing they just did to almost get themselves severely injured. Yet we are commanded, Fathers are in particular, to "bring them up." How do we do that? We wan't to do that well. Of all the tasks we don't want to mess up it is certainly raising God-fearing, God-loving, and God-honoring kids. In today's passage we look at how we use the two tools of discipline and instruction that God has given us to raise our kids. We will see that there is a danger of "provoking them to anger" but by God's grace we can avoid it as we administer rightly the task of parenting and enjoy watching our kids grow up in the process.

We were all kids once and had days, many of them we must admit, where our obedience wasn't quite up to standards. We may be parents now and we know for certain there are days, seems like many of them we have to admit, where our kids aren't as obedient as we desire. The command of God on the matter is clear; children, obey your parents. Kids have the imperative to obey and parents have the task of ensuring compliance. Today's passage gives clear guidance and real help for child and parent alike. Ephesians 6:1-3 lays out God's case that a child's obedience must be insisted upon and gives parents motivation to endure disobedience to see their kids to obedience. Warning, there are huge blessings ahead for kids and parents!

The Bible is not an encyclopedia. It is not arranged topically such that we open it when we have questions on a certain subject. What does the Bible say about marriage? Turn to the marriage section. What does the Bible say about parenting? Turn to the...

My little girl loves fairy tales. Cinderella, Rapunzel, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty are among her favorites. Often, after watching one of these classics, she will reenact the story with her dolls, many of which are the Disney replicas. I'll...

Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. The command of God seems simply enough for men to follow but every guy who has been married for longer than five minutes knows that it is extremely difficult. Yet, in His...