What’s at the root of thanksgiving? Where does genuine thanksgiving come from? As we prepare for our own Thanksgiving celebrations we’ll discover together from Colossians 1 that true thankfulness is rooted in the knowledge of God and the wonder of what Christ has done.

From the beginning, we were created to be in fellowship with God and each other.  After the fall, the struggle of humanity can be summed up with a simple question: Will we choose to worship the God who is life, light and love?  As we finish our series on 1 John, we will look in 1 John 5:13-21 to see John’s concluding statements on how to focus on the God who was light, life, and love from the beginning.

Love Week

John talks a great deal about love that has been perfected.  This type of love is an action done for someone else with no expectation of response, which is measured by its impact through eternity.  Over the last three weeks we have considered various aspects of this love, and now we will consider how we can be a community saturated by this type of love.

God is love is one of the most often misquoted passages in Scripture.  Why?  Because many hear “love” and think about feelings.  When we dig in to 1 John 4:1-21 we see a very different picture of love, brought about through the radical moment when Jesus laid down his life for us.  Come hear about what we have gained through the love of Christ, and how we can respond in kind.

God loves us.  It is awesome to recognize that truth, but even more powerful when we realize that the love God has for us is a love of action.  Join us as we begin to look at John’s definition of love in 1 John 3:11-24 and learn how we can be a part of reflecting that love to others.

We are bombarded with so many different things that claim to be the truth, it can be difficult to know what to filter out.  First century Christians dealt with the same battle.  Come join us as we look at 1 John 2:18-3:10 and see practical advice from John on how to stay rooted in the way, the truth, and the life.

The apostle John is a unique figure in human history, in that he was one of the closest followers of Jesus, and the lone disciple to witness Christ’s crucifixion.  John was also most likely the last living apostle.  As he wrote 1 John 2:7-17, he was concerned with helping the many generations in the church stand firm, working to encourage the generations that came after the apostles.  Join us as we learn from his wisdom.

God is light and having fellowship with him is about learning to walk in His light.  It is easy to say we walk in the light, but what does it really look like to do it?  That is the question we are going to look at as we dig in to 1 John 1:5-2:6.

From the beginning God created us to be in community with him. On the other side of the fall, it can seem very difficult to imagine how we could live out that purpose well. The good news is that through the life we have in Christ, we are invited back to the same fellowship with God that was a part of our created purpose. Come join us as we look at the introduction to 1 John and see what is in store for us through our ten-week series in 1 John.

God is the source of life for all of creation, but we often find ourselves putting hope in things that pale in comparison. The good news is that the Bible is full of stories of how God shows himself to be greater than the things we place our hope in. This Sunday we will look at how the Lord works through Elijah in 1 Kings 16-18 to show his people why they should place their hope solely in the Lord.