There are times when we wish God would interrupt. When we’re hurting. When times are tough. When we long for God to interrupt our pain, even though we trust God’s power, we can doubt His timing. We want God’s comfort, just not his calendar. God is more interested in our character than our comfort. That means we need to trust his power and His timing.

What would you do if you were absolutely confident that God was with you in everything? Even when he was at his most desperate, Joseph was confident God was with him and acted accordingly. And He was!

David’s life was interrupted by maniacal King Saul, and careened out of control. Abandoning his expected path to the throne, David learned to trust in God. He learned that, just because he was not in control, it didn’t mean that God was not.

There’s something about new that is special. New car smell. The sweetness of a newborn baby. The excitement of a new relationship. If there’s one word that best describes Heaven it is new. A “new heaven and a new earth.” We will receive new perfected bodies that are freed of the constraints of our decaying material world. “This new earth will not have sickness, death, division, decay, or anything that could bring tears to our eyes.” But the best “new” of all will be our face-to-face relationship with Jesus.

Nothing matters more to our faith than the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If the resurrection is a lie, then nothing else Jesus said or did matters. But if the resurrection is true everything Jesus said and did matters. His promises are all trustworthy. The resurrection of Jesus Christ, while disputed by a great many, is defensible through four indisputable truths: 1) Jesus was executed by crucifixion, 2) the tomb was empty, 3) the apostles saw Jesus appear to them in a tangible body, and 4) the Christian church was founded. (Moore, Core 52, 298-300.)

Jesus didn’t come to kill his enemies, but to die for them. “The cross isn’t merely what Jesus did for us. It’s what he modeled for us. Being a disciple is not just receiving what Jesus did; it’s imitating how he lived. … Like Jesus’s death, our suffering and sacrifice have saving power, not for the individual soul but for society as a whole. As Jesus dies to atone for our personal sins, so we die to reverse the effects of sin in society, families, and communities.” (Moore, Core 52, 157-158.)

“There’s only one true gospel of Jesus. Hence, we’re to do everything in our power to put him on his throne. This isn’t merely a metaphor. Through his church, Jesus reigns in this world. It’s our responsibility and privilege to be his couriers, announcing to far-flung places this singular truth that we have a king named Jesus who sits on the throne in God’s heaven to bring healing to God’s earth.” (Moore, Core 52, 185.)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor martyred by the Nazis wrote, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” Not a literal death, but rather a radical change from self-orientation to a Christ-centered orientation. That kind of change does not come easily. It only happens when we reject the cultural patterns of this world and are radically transformed into who God created us to be.

Christians’ struggle against sin is real. In our heads we know we’re saved, our hearts are grateful for that salvation, yet we seem trapped in a cycle of sin. We can easily feel trapped without hope, anticipating a dreadful judgment. There is hope. Romans 8 is “the single greatest chapter in the Bible for helping Christians move beyond the burden of judgment to the freedom of grace.”

Mark Moore wrote, “The book of Acts has more to say about interethnic evangelism than anything else except salvation. Before Christians spread the gospel to all the world, they had to be convinced of the full humanity of other ethnic groups.” Many still need convincing that Jesus came to destroy every barrier that separates us from Him and each other.