Restoration Living

In life, it seems that temptation is lurking around every corner. But it is in times of struggle that we feel temptation the most. This is when we are most drawn to the dark desires that seek to build up our kingdom rather than God's Kingdom. How then do we face these temptations and resist them? We find the answer to this question in the life of Jesus. In this episode, we will look at how Jesus handled temptation and correctly used the word of God to resist selfish desires and keep a heart that is focused on honoring God. 

Sometimes in life, we get the unexpected; the unexpected bill, the unexpected job loss, the unexpected injury, or even the unexpected sickness. It can be really easy to find ourselves overcome with fear in all of these situations. We have fear about the future and what it holds. But when we experience the perfect love of God, we can remember that we may not know what the future holds, but we do know who holds the future. In this episode, we will look at how the prophet Elijah had faith in God even in the midst of fear for his life. Join us as we learn that even when we are fearful, God is always faithful. 

In poker, a person can pretend they have a better hand than they actually do. This technique is called bluffing. The problem with bluffing is that, eventually, you get called on it. Then you have to show your cards and let everyone see the truth. In life, we can find ourselves bluffing as well; about our leadership, our relationships, and even our walk with God. When the hard moments of life come, they reveal who we really are and call our bluff. These moments force us to admit the truths about ourselves before God and others. In this episode, we look at how the Prophet Samuel called King Saul's bluff before a military battle and expose Saul's true heart towards God. We will then see how God can teach us to trust in Him fully rather than in ourselves. 

Valentine's Day brings with it all of these cultural images of flowers, candies, hearts, cupids, and (of course) love. We think of love and we always think of romance, family, and friends. Yet, Jesus taught a great deal on a very different love: love for our enemies. If we want to grow our love for others we have to learn to love as God loves, and that means we need a greater love. Join us as we look at what Jesus has to say about loving our enemies and how to grow in our love for God and others. 

In this day and age, it can be easy to get discouraged and disheartened over the state of our world. We live in a culture that is dark and far away from God. Sadly, we are in this state mainly because the Church has not done what it was called to do: be salt and light. In this episode, we look at what Jesus taught His followers about what salt and light does and how we can become the earth preserves that Jesus calls each of His followers to be. 

Like many young families, we were gifted the famous "What to Expect when You're Expecting" book when my wife went to one of her baby showers. And it came in handy to learn from experts what we should prepare for and not get surprised by. But wouldn't it be nice to have a book about what to do when things happen that we aren't expecting? When things go crazy, we lose jobs, get a bad diagnosis, have financial difficulties, and even face the pain of death, it would be incredibly helpful to have a book that tells us what we can do to make it through these tough times. The good news is that God has done just that by giving us His word (aka the Bible). In this episode, we will take one final look at the Christmas story and see how Mary and Joseph sought God and found a way to handle the unexpected. Hopefully it will be one that we too can apply in our own lives so that we can trust that God's promises never fail. 

They say the timing is everything. But what about the times where God makes promises that don’t look like they are going to be fulfilled? It can be difficult to trust that God will do all that he says he will, in the midst of years of waiting and wondering. To us, the Christmas story about the birth of Jesus and the coming of the Messiah our regular events that we celebrate each year. But we often forget that the coming of the Messiah was a promise that took over four centuries to happen. During those over 400 years, God‘s people did not receive any word from Him and in that silence, they had to learn to trust. The same is true for you and I. When time passes on slowly and we wait on God to be faithful to keep his promises, we must choose to either doubt His goodness or trust in His faithfulness. One of the best parts of the Christmas story, is where we flip the page from Malachi to Matthew, cross that gap of 400 years, and get to see God‘s promises fulfilled on the pages of history. In this episode, we will look at how God sets things in place so that His promises will come to pass in our lives at just the perfect time and we can learn to worship in these periods of waiting. 

Life seems to always be incredibly busy and when we get phone calls it is so easy to send them to voicemail. We promise ourselves we will get back to it later but we don't always do a good job with that. In a similar way, we get calls from God during our lives. Whether it is for a season or for a lifetime, God calls on us to partner with Him to bring the Kingdom of Heaven here on Earth in powerful and unique ways. Sadly, we also have the option to send God's calls on our lives to voicemail as well. In this episode, we will look at how we can answer these calls and let God use us in real and mighty ways.