Practical Faith

God is already at work in the life of every single one of your unsaved friends. Every single one of them! And He is inviting you – He is authorizing you in the Name of Jesus – He is sending you! – to join Him in that miraculous work. Within the past 10 years in the U.S., a whopping 83% of all new church attendees came to church because someone invited them – either to a Sunday service, or to a small group gathering. 

God has purposes for you to serve right here – right in your very own town – among your very own generation, just like He had for David in the Bible...

To become like Jesus, we’ve gotta do three things: do things the way Jesus did them; pray in the ways that Jesus prayed; and believe like Jesus believed. Today we’ll talk about believing like Jesus believed. Believing IN Jesus is of utmost importance. Eternity literally hangs in the balance of it. But it is just the starting point of a life of following Jesus. To become like Jesus, we’ve got to believe like Jesus believed.  And His faith in God was an active faith. Jesus believed the words of the Father enough to act upon them. In order to become like Jesus, we’ve got to believe like Jesus believed.

Becoming like Jesus means doing things the way Jesus did them.  It also means praying the way that Jesus prayed.

To become like Jesus, we’ve gotta do three things. We’ve got to do what Jesus did, pray like Jesus prayed, and believe like Jesus believed. So first up is: Do what Jesus did. Sometimes, as followers of Jesus, it can be cool to actually do things the way Jesus did them...

The Eternal Son of God – God, who made us in His image – He descended from heaven to earth and become like us in every way except sin. He made us like Himself. And then, after we messed it all up, He Himself became like us, so that He could enable us to become like Him again...

In the Book of Acts, we are amazed by the miracles we see there: miraculous healings… resurrections from the dead… angelic deliverances from prisons…  All these amazing things happened! But there is a danger for us in thinking that these are the only things that indicate the supernatural in the Bible. That these kinds of miracles are the reason the early Church flourished and grew. We tend to put signs and wonders like these up on a pedestal. And in so doing, we relegate all the rest of the Spirit’s supernatural work in us as being ordinary, unimportant, and unremarkable. This is a mistake I make when I read the Book of Acts, and when I look at my life and the world around me...

The term “supernatural” simply means, higher than what is natural, above what is natural, beyond the natural. The supernatural is the work of God, fueled by the Presence and the character of God. Today, we will look at Acts chapter 2 and invite the Holy Spirit of God to awaken us to the supernatural in our lives...

When Dianna and I were chaplains onboard the Mercy Ship, I had a discipling relationship with a crew member onboard. He was a great guy – brilliant mind, fun personality, loved his wife and kids – loved and served the Lord faithfully! He had smoked his entire life, and he wanted to stop. And one day, he asked my advice...

In Mark chapter 12, the opponents of Jesus set a trap before Him. And, honestly, it’s a brilliant trap. It should’ve worked. Here’s how it went – it says, “Later they sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Jesus to catch him in his words.  They came to him and said, 'Teacher, we know that you are a man of integrity. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are; but you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?  Should we pay or shouldn’t we?' ”