Whom amongst your friends or family can you most depend upon to keep their promises? It’s a wonderful character trait to experience in another person. Have you experienced the pain and disappointment of broken promises and broken trust? It can make it very difficult to trust other people. Over the past 2 weeks, the writer of Hebrews has been encouraging his friends to engage in the effort needed to continue on their path towards maturity despite the challenging circumstances in which they find themselves. This week we will hear of the promise-keeping God whose word we can trust and the gifts of faith and patience.

The ground receives a blessing from God when it drinks up the rain that regularly comes and falls on it and yields a useful crop for those people for whom it is being farmed. But if it produces thorns and thistles, it’s useless and close to being cursed. It ends up being burned. So let’s press on to maturity…

You know that feeling...you're working on something and it's kind of going in circles, nothing is really actually getting done because you're unfocused? What do you do? You may go for a walk, splash some water on your face. But most people will stop for a snack.

Message from Grant Myles-Era on April 30, 2023

Over thousands of years of what is known as Christianity, there have been all types of movements, ideologies and trends that have ebbed and flowed with the twists and turns of the human story; our politics, our culture and our technology. After all is said and done, what really matters? What has been and always will be the core confession of this particular faith? Our confession.

We are BACK in Hebrews this week!  What a way to get back in to it: "For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.--"

After the darkness and fear of the days since Jesus gathered with his friends to celebrate the Passover, the dawn breaks on a new day, a day when everything changes. Once again we will be reminded that though we may think we know the story, there is so much more to it that we could ever imagine.

Schedule of the day for Paul and Silas:  
-Go somewhere to pray

What they actually accomplished for the day: 
-Followed around by a young girl possessed by a demon 
-Cast out that demon 
-Get stripped of clothes and beaten 
-Get thrown in jail 
-12 midnight:  Start singing hymns, take cover from an earthquake, stay in jail and save the guards life  

So much for the plan they had!  What a day..

Perhaps you are familiar with this fishy tale of a reluctant prophet. Perhaps you know how the story ends - Jonah on dry land after his submarine journey in the great fish. You may, however, be surprised to learn that not everything is as it seems on the surface and the depth of God’s presence shows up in the most unlikely of places.

ike Esther and Moses, where God saved them from annihilation and death, God seems to be the one allowing TERRIBLE THINGS in Job's story. Why? How do we understand this story when God is right there, in the middle of it?