One of Jesus' biggest commandments is to love others. Not just love our friends and hate our enemies, but to even love our enemies. We love others by serving others. When we truly learn to submit to God, He starts to transform our hearts to find ways to serve others in small ways and big ways. Thankfully He also provides a church family to serve alongside you so you don't have to do it alone. This message is all about the importance of serving others.

Isn't it hard to deal with when someone says they will do something, but they end up doing the complete opposite? None of us like hanging around people who are hypocrites. We also don't want to be known as someone who is a hypocrite. Today, we look at when we do something that we know we shouldn't be doing, or don't do something that we should be doing, all stems from our hearts. Jesus talks a lot about hypocrites in the Gospels. He especially challenges the religious leaders of their time as being hypocrites. It had nothing to do with their actions, but everything to do with their heart. The deal is, we're all going to mess up, but it's how we respond afterwards that exposes what is truly inside of us. 

When we commit to Christ, we don't get a free pass to take advantage of His grace. We have died to our sin and are alive in Christ. We learn that it is only when we submit to Christ that we experience the true freedom that He talks about in the Gospel of John. Being alive in Christ may cost us something that we want and it may be a sacrifice. But thankfully, God is for us and will give us the desires of our heart that are honoring to Him.

Whatever emotions are inside of us are what is going to come out of us. If we are feeling a lot of guilt, then a lot of negative emotions are also going to come out of us. But Jesus has already taken care of our guilt. He took our guilt and our shame to the cross with Him so that sin no longer can have a hold on us. The Holy Spirit has set us free from guilt and shame. Because of Jesus, guilt doesn't have to rule over us or be the boss of us.

Fear can be a good thing and can keep us safe when we need to be, but fear can also stop us dead in our tracks. Teenagers especially can struggle the most with the fear of other people's opinions, which stop them from living the full life that God has for them. This message will look at the story in Matthew 8 where the disciples feared for their lives because their boat was being tossed and turned by a storm. But Jesus had other plans for them and used the time for a teaching moment for His disciples. Teaching that taught that He can be trusted and they do not need to fear.

One of the hardest emotions to control is anger. When something doesn't go our way or when someone hurts us by talking behind our back, we want to throw some sort of fit. It may be an outburst, or it may even be a quiet treatment towards the person who hurt us. But, what if there was a better way to handle anger? What if we could hand over our anger to God and trust Him with it? When we are able to give our anger up to God, then we gain wisdom and understanding on how to live our life. I think every one of us would choose wisdom over anger.

We are starting a new series where we talk about emotions. We all experience emotions, it's part of how God created us. In today's message, we look at how feeling emotions is not a bad thing unless we start to act out of those emotions. What defiles our witness for Christ is what comes out of our reactions to the emotions. Today, we learn that emotions do not have to control us and be the boss of us.

In our final week of "It's Personal" we continue to take a look at the life of Zacchaeus. In this story we see how Jesus sees the potential in Zacchaeus when everyone else counted him out. Jesus is the same with us. He sees that we have potential to do great things, so we must also see that potential in others as well.

No matter what your past looks like or if you have shame for what you have done, Jesus still loves you. We continue to look at the life of Zacchaeus and how Jesus loves him even though his reputation was not favorable. We hope that through this story of Zacchaeus you can know that Jesus loves you no matter what.

We all have a story. No matter what your story looks like, whether it's been good or bad, Jesus understands it and welcomes you with open arms. This week, we continue to look at the story of Zacchaeus as our intern Jennifer Allen gives the message.