Every now and then our lives can feel overwhelming. Distracted by the business of our lives, burdened by the fullness of our schedules, and even saddled with the responsibilities of ministry, it's possible that we miss the presence and the power of God and His love. In this podcast, we take time to reflect on the goodness of God and His love and power in our lives. If you need some encouragement, remember that you have been purposed for the presence of God.

The Bible is full of tales of adventure, war, nations being built and destroyed and so much more. It is a veritable source of fascinating stories and historical recollections. But, along with the good comes the bad—it is also full of horrifying moments that put the goriest modern horror films to shame. Disturbing facts when it comes to suffering remain perhaps the greatest challenge to any person who takes faith, truth, and life seriously. What do you tell a friend whose 3 or 4-year-old child develops double vision, and is found to have an inoperable brain tumor and despite the best medical therapy, dies at home? How do you comfort a young lady who comes up to you at church and says, “I’m seeing a surgeon this week because I found a lump. He says it’s probably nothing…” But of course, it wasn’t nothing, it was breast cancer . In this world, we will have troubles and sometimes our world may seem to cave in. So what are we called to do when our faith faces disturbing facts.? How do we keep an eternal prespective?

No matter what you do in life—whether you go to college or fine tune your craft; build a business or climb the corporate ladder; get married or sail through the world solo—some people will support you, while others will criticize your choices and doubt your motives. These people often mean well, but their negative comments can be a devastating blow to your self-esteem. Such is the case, spiritually, when times are hard. When we are passed over for promotion or lose a job, when we become chronically ill, when we lose people we love, what then? The accuser –Satan—hopes to set just such a trap for the Christian who is going through pain. Many times the “well-meaning” friends may threaten our faith and cause us to lose hope and abandon our faith altogether. This week we’ll learn how to “PRESS ON” by looking at the life of Job. He is introduced as a man of great learning and influence; as a man of great piety who knew and reverenced God and appreciated justice; as man of great generosity and wealth. Suddenly, disaster came upon Job and he was bereft of his children, and his wealth, his influence, and his health. He sought in vain for an explanation as to why God should permit such evils to befall him, yet still trusted in God, saying “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” His four friends came to visit him and told him in lengthy argument that that he must have been a great sinner and a hypocrite. True friends, right? Many lessons are to be learned here from this scripture.

Superstorm Sandy hit the eastern U.S. on October 29, 2012. New York City took a massive hit from the storm; so did New Jersey, and other coastal areas to the north and south—and even cities as far west as Cleveland, Ohio. The storm plunged huge parts of major American cities into darkness, darkness that lasted in some case for weeks—darkness that claimed lives and may well have scarred some individuals, families, and communities for many years to come. Some of us know what that’s like. Maybe we escaped Sandy, but we have experienced darkness nonetheless—deep darkness, crippling darkness, lasting darkness! This kind of darkness comes to people whose circumstances in life are anything but bright, positive or optimistic. This kind of darkness may differ from one person to the next. The darkness may be poverty, hunger, or hopelessness. It may be a mother as she watches the life of her child slowly fade away. To a child in a war torn county, the darkness is armed men plundering, killing, raping. For another darkness is struggling with an illness, the aches and pains of old age, losing the struggle with failing abilities and entering a nursing home. Then there are those areas of darkness that Satan, the prince of darkness, brings into our lives like hatred, greed, alcohol abuse, selfishness…….The good news is whatever way the darkness shows itself in our lives, Christ has come to be a light for us. In Isaiah 60:20 we are given these words, “Your sun shall no more go down, neither shall your moon withdraw itself; for Yahweh will be your everlasting light, and the days of your mourning shall be ended."

Have you ever known of a person to make a mistake or suffer some failure and people (in a general sense) just won’t let them live it down? They make a mistake at school and suddenly they are identified with that one mistake or failure for the rest of their lives. Forget the fact that they have lived and accomplished all sort of things; they have a failure and now they are marked for life. Convicted felons deal with this phenomena every day of their life. Having paid their debt to society, often society is not satisfied. Fallen man loves to get a person down and then refuse to let them back up. How then do we get back on our feet? How do we become a faithful and productive member of the team again? This week we’ll look at the story of John Mark and his “Comeback”. If you’re in the middle of a broken relationship, you’ve lost trust; you’ve been let down; or if you’ve come up short in some responsibility, then this message will give you hope.

Servant living stands opposed to the primary focus of our culture and society. The preoccupation with self is readily seen in slogans like, “be all you can be” or “experience your potential”. Simply put, our modern day society, and this includes a great number of Christians, is focused on making self-satisfaction its goal. There is much more concern for self-fulfillment than for pleasing God and truly serving Him as seen in the life of Jesus. Just think, if Christ came to be served, our redemption could and would never have taken place! (Mark 10:45) There is no question, however, that if we as Christians are going to grow and mature into Christ-like character, we must experience progress in servanthood. It means willingly giving of oneself to minister for and to others and to do whatever it takes to accomplish what is best for another. A critical issue in every church is getting people to volunteer and to stay engaged volunteering. The reason why this has to be a front-burner issue is because at the heart of it, volunteering is an essential component of the discipleship process in every believer’s life. Being a part of a ministry is a joy, honor and a privilege. To be part of God’s mission, to serve the church and the community and to be part of the forming of faith in others is an amazing experience (and it’s a whole lot of fun!).

Jesus often used the things of this world around us to explain spiritual things symbolically. In the passage we will study this week Jesus used sheep to give a lesson about the New Birth. He referred to Himself as a good shepherd who cared, took care of the sheep, and even laid down his life for the sheep. In His day shepherds would bring their flocks at night into one fold or corral. During the day they would pasture on hills, but there were also many wolves and enemies there. So at night the shepherds would all lead their flocks into one fold. This fold would have a corral or fence made of stone and be high enough to keep out thieves, robbers, and wolves. At the gate there would be a gatekeeper who would open the gate when the shepherds came to call their sheep. The shepherd would know each one of his sheep and the sheep would follow their respective shepherds out of the fold when they heard him call.

Standing at the eighteenth hole on a gorgeous spring morning, one might hardly feel in danger. However, it is time we who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ accept the fact that life is warfare and that we are engaged in a conflict that is real, difficult, and dangerous. The story is told about a battle on December 7, 1941, on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. Out of a clear blue sky, swarms of growling aircraft descended. Suddenly, all around Pearl Harbor, ships erupted into flames and billows of oily smoke. Within those ships, men died without a moment’s warning some even asleep in their bunks. A battle was raging! Aboard the cruiser New Orleans, a chaplain named Howell M. Forgy helped a group of crewmen break into a locked ammunition storeroom so the ship could mount a defense. Once Chaplain Forgy and the other men got inside, they discovered the ammunition hoist was out of commission. So Chaplain Forgy and the other men formed a human chain, like a bucket brigade, passing heavy artillery shells from man to man up to the gun deck. The shells were heavy and the work was hard and discouraging, and it had to be carried on amid the smell of smoke and the sound of human screams and roaring planes and exploding bombs. Chaplain Forgy saw that some of the men’s arms were weakening and their faces showed signs of hopelessness. So he pasted a broad smile on his face, slapped the back of the man next to him, and shouted, “Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!” You and I face the same situation today. Although we are under heavy spiritual and moral attack and the devastation of this war is all around us, to survive and to win, we must mount a strong defense. We must learn to “praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!” The struggle is real but the victory is sure.

Some years ago, you may remember, many places gave Green Stamps that we would collect in a booklet. Occasionally, you would gather the pile of books and take them to the “Redemption Center” to claim your reward of a bowl, or knife, or some toy the children wanted. As Christians, we talk a lot about “redemption” when we were “born again”. But, it’s very evident that most Christians don’t understand all the blessings that come with the transaction. Friend, the new birth is much more than merely responding to an altar call. Our redemption is so complete it can be described as nothing less than a totally new life in the spirit. Many are the benefits one gets after being born again, and this week, Pastor will take a look at the bounty of blessings we received. We can barely scratch the surface of the blessings inherited when one becomes a “born again” believer. So, if you are wallowing around in a quagmire of uncertainly, not knowing the benefits you received, come this week and claim your stake in the kingdom. It can mark the beginning of your journey into a life of real fulfillment.

When Jesus told Nicodemus that he had to be born again, it messed with his mind! Nicodemus could not grasp how that could be. He imagined himself going back into his mother’s womb to be born a second time. I am sure his mother would have vetoed that idea! He wanted to know how this could happen, so he asked Jesus about the “HOW?” of the new birth. Nicodemus knows that he is in the presence of a mystery and he wants the answers. The mystery, simply stated, is how a sovereign act of God by His Spirit works to cleanse from sin and give spiritual birth into God’s household and how it renews the believer’s intellect, sensibility, and will to enable that person to enter the kingdom of God and to do good works. None of us truly understands everything there is to know about it. It is still a mystery, even to those of us who have experienced it! However, don’t let the fact that it is a mystery cause you to avoid it altogether! You don’t let the mystery of electricity cause you to sit in the dark do you? You don’t let the mystery of how a brown cow can eat green grass and give yellow butter and white milk stop you from enjoying butter, milk and ice cream do you? In this series, Pastor will explore “The New Birth” and, perhaps, unlock some of the mystery.