Richard Ellis Talks

Most of us know what it feels like to run from God at one point or another. We live according to our own rules (or lack of them) and want to do things our own way. No matter how long we've been gone, our Father is always waiting for our hearts to come back to Him. And one of the ways we can keep from straying off the path He's set for us is to find a church that provides us with accountability, a spiritual family, and a place to call "home".

Have you ever stopped to consider that God has NEVER created a person who He didn't love? Too often we get tunnel vision and focus only on what makes us different. When we love one another and celebrate the fact that He made each of us uniquely instead of finding reasons to hate those who don't look or act or think like us, we demonstrate to a divided world that our love comes from God and that He has the power to bring unity to His family through His Church.

Long before we started trading paper valentines, God gave us the ultimate Valentine in His love letter to us: the Bible. He loves us so much that He sacrificed His own Son on our behalf and chose us to be His beloved -- now and forever. The question is: have we chosen Him in return?

God's love doesn't come with clauses in the fine print! It's unchanging and unconditional, no matter how many mistakes we make. And when we allow ourselves to be overcome by the depth and the breadth of His love for us, it overflows and pours out through our love for others.

Jesus declared in Scripture that He came to be the Light of the World (John 8:12). But He also declared that because we're His followers, WE'RE the light of the world, too (Matthew 5:14)! When we surrender ourselves to the Lord, He shines a light within us that radiates outward -- and people who live in darkness will be drawn to that light that's inside us because of Jesus.

Have you ever listened to a sermon where the message was watered down to make you feel better about your actions? Spiritual maturity means being willing to seek out real biblical teaching -- even if it makes us uncomfortable and causes us conviction about our own sin. When the Word of God is preached, the power of God comes with it and brings real, transformative life change.

God reveals more than just a promise of Heaven to us through His Word. His very character and limitless power are demonstrated in the living words of Scripture and illuminated by the Holy Spirit. And it's through that same Spirit that we're able to fully see and understand the extent of His love for us.

As the late A.W. Tozer put it, "We cannot pray in love and live in hate and still think we are worshipping God." Our obedience to the Lord comes out of our love for Him, and one of His commands is that we love each other the way He first loved us. When we do this, we not only model what it means to obey God -- we model what it means to belong to Him.

Scripture tells us that God hates evil, and He promises to hold vengeance in His hands. But at the same time, He uses some of our darkest and most difficult moments to turn us back to Him. One day, our time in this world will come to an end; the question we have to face is, where will we be after this life? We have the assurance of the hope offered through Christ, but in order to receive it we have to repent and surrender to Him.

Salvation is more than just a get-out-of-jail-free card. Instead of simply setting our sights dead ahead on Heaven, we need to look around and see who we're going to take with us. When we're taught how to be fishers of men, we're not only able to go and do it -- we're able to teach others to do the same. And like a school of fish swimming in perfect unison, when we work together as the Church to accomplish that goal, our unity will make others take notice and attract them to join in.