Richard Ellis Talks

All throughout Scripture and throughout human history, we see examples of the consequences for disobedience to God. As Christians, doing the right thing is a continual process. But our decision to be consciously obedient will pay off in the end!

When we give our lives to Christ, we join a family that carries out the work of God in the world. Part of being a member of that family is learning how to love believers and nonbelievers alike, and that can only be done with His help. Belonging to God's Church isn't just about what we get out of it -- it's about what we can contribute to it, too, and that starts with loving others as Jesus loves them!

In the old cartoon The Flintstones, the family would get in their car and use their own physical manpower to make it run! That probably seems silly -- but have you ever considered that we try to do the same thing with our spiritual lives? It's easy for us to try to run things in and with our own strength. But the Christian life is about letting Jesus live through us, so that the same power that raised Him from the dead can ignite our lives as believers!

Just like in the story of the prodigal son, God is waiting for us to come back to Him. And often, He allows the pain in our lives to bring us back. No matter how many mistakes we've made, He's promised to restore all that's broken if we only return to Him!

God's promised to take care of all our needs. But all too often we cling to our material possessions and love them more than we love Him! If we're not willing to give up the things God asks us to, it's a pretty clear indication that our stuff owns us and we're living in disobedience. When we give our lives to Christ, He owns us -- and all of our "stuff" is His "stuff", anyway!

No matter what our circumstances look like, it's possible for us to be content! That's because God has provided everything that we need. When we're Kingdom-focused instead of world-focused, our material possessions become just a tool to be used by Him -- and how much or how little we have ceases to affect our choice to find contentment.

There are moments in life that sock us in the gut. And when we get knocked down, the world is watching to see how we'll react. Our lives should reflect our trust in the Lord, rather than focusing on our circumstances, so that everyone around us will see that it's our faith in God that keeps us standing.

Jesus teaches us that in order to follow Him, we have to do the exact opposite of what the world says: we have to lose ourselves in order to win. And trying to hold on to our plans with clenched fingers is a surefire way to lose it all in the end! The only way for us to win is to first lose ourselves to God and live in obedience to Him.

The Christian life is like running a race, and that means we need to run as if we want to win! It takes work, and the road's not easy, but God puts people in our lives to help us and to run with us. When we let go of the things that are weighing us down, we're freed up to run God's race with endurance and determination -- all the way to the finish line, when He calls us home to eternity.

The biggest comeback in human history happened when Jesus took our sin upon Himself, died to pay the price for us, and rose from the grave. He also promised that one day, He'd come back and take us with Him to spend eternity with the Father. Whether we're coming to Him for the first time and receiving salvation, or we're coming back to Him after wandering away, no matter how far we've strayed, we can always make a comeback because of His sacrifice.