Renewal Church

To know Jesus. To experience Jesus. To become one with Jesus. To give up everything for the surpassing greatness of Jesus. That our lives would celebrate Jesus. To become like Jesus. To be resurrected in Jesus.

Our culture tells us that in order to maximize your pleasure, be your own god. Do whatever you have to do in order to be as happy as you can be. Avoid pain and sacrifice, get out of hard work, think about yourself, obey your own desires in order to bring about your happiness. What does the Bible say? Does God care about my happiness?

Before we obey, we must feel. We need a heart-pounding vision for what life is like in Jesus before we move toward that life. But we first must lay down our defenses and the old stories that define us and propel us towards behaviors that we despise. We need to see Jesus's story as our own. We need a vision for his life. The beautiful life.

"Why?" We've all asked this question when pain jolts us. We feel helpless and crushed. We look for immediate relief. Sometimes at any cost.

But what if we were able to see God's purposes in spite of our pain? Even more, what if we learned to see pain as God's instrument to bring out his purposes in our lives, to bring into a fuller view his beauty, his ways, his love for us, and his care for the whole world?