God wants us to take comfort and trust that He has the plans for our lives.

The church in Antioch didn’t let a little thing like persecution stop them from talking about Jesus! These Christian people are sharing the good news, not with religious people, but with Gentiles, people who had never heard this before, people who were very secular. The Christians in Jerusalem sent Barnabas down to Antioch to find out what the Christians there were doing. We need to be in the middle of the community sharing the good news of Jesus!

According to Jesus, “Purity in heart” isn’t about believing the right things and going through the right motions. It’s doing the right things, with the right motives, with the right heart.

Before you can be filled by God, you need to be emptied of you. Coming to the end of ourselves and being emptied of ourselves happens one of two ways. Either we are emptied, or we choose to empty ourselves. Either life does the emptying, or we choose to do it first. But either way there will be an emptying of ME.

What Satan would love to use to harm us, distract us, or cause us to weep, God can use to teach us, sharpen us, and give us lasting joy because we’ve learned to rely on Him.

When you come to the end of yourself, real life begins. It usually doesn’t feel that way, though. In fact, it never feels that way. It’s like saying, “When you come to the end of the trail, then you’re ready to start hiking.”

Everyone knows that it just doesn’t work that way. But in God’s kingdom, it’s the central premise that makes everything else work: When you come to the end of yourself, real life begins.

Conviction without Compassion

Can Be Cumbersome

This series is not so that you will get more involved in all of these social issues that we are going to discuss, and you might feel compelled to do so, but the real focus of this series is for us to put Christ first in our lives and in our culture. When we do so we will be focused on glorifying God and we will be changed and compelled.