Ray Bentley

You want to make peace. Show the gentleman house of God. Not that God's running around. He's angry and he's fed up. And he can't wait to judge everybody. That's that's not God. That's not the one I believe in. I believe in the one who said he takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.

How do you identify yourself? . . . First and foremost, we should view ourselves as God's children. When we do, we'll be amazed at how that changes our lives. Want to know why?

God's love should so fill us that it flows over to others . . .Paul was encouraging. He goes, look, I know there's going to be differences of opinion, differences of expression, but strive for unity. Realize you're all brothers and sisters. You're all going to spend eternity with one another. You realize that we're going to be spending eternity with each other.

The successful Christian life starts with what God has done for us. Many times the church, let's say as an institution, has gotten the order backwards. You need to do this for God and you need to do that for God. And if you do this, then God will bless you. I believe that is not the biblical order.

Jesus wants to have a close, caring relationship with us. You have a shepherd who's going to protect you. He's going to lead you to green pastures. He's going to work every circumstance, be involved in every detail, and even use the negative things in a fallen world to disciple you and to grow you up and to prepare you for an eternity of sharing as adjoined here with Jesus Christ

What if you were full of pain, cuts, bruises, beaten, and yet what you were feeling was so much more real, so much more powerful, this overcoming joy and victory. Now you've got it. When life is at its darkest

He walked on water. Cast devils out. He raised the dead. And so the disciples are thinking. Messiah. Kingdom, if he can do these things. What power on earth could stop him? But instead of using that power. Jesus is taken, nailed to a cross. Dies.

Paul was persecuted by the religious leaders for spreading the gospel. They said, look, if you'll stop preaching this message of grace by faith, we'll stop persecuting you. Paul was beaten up so many times in prison, so many times for you Gentiles. Why was he so convinced of this? He wanted to make sure that you could be saved by grace through faith alone.

So when Jesus crossed, as it were, the threshold, he was crucified. His blood was shed. Symbolically, the angels clean their swords, sheathed them, stand back. And now the way is open. Access is available. Now that Jesus. And of course, the beauty is that he not only died right there at the very entrance to fellowship with God, then he rose from the dead.

Why only through him and with the analogy that comes here, actually comes from the Middle East and the patriarchs. Abraham, of course, was a shepherd. Moses was a shepherd. David was a shepherd. And interestingly, when I went to when I went to high school, I was in a district where I was supposed to go to this one high school, but I wanted to transfer because of the sports program that they had and the sport that I was in.

Why only through him and with the analogy that comes here, actually comes from the Middle East and the patriarchs. Abraham, of course, was a shepherd. Moses was a shepherd. David was a shepherd. And interestingly, when I went to when I went to high school, I was in a district where I was supposed to go to this one high school, but I wanted to transfer because of the sports program that they had and the sport that I was in.