In this story from 1 Kings, pagan worship had started to spread among the people of Israel. Elijah asked them (1 Kings 18:21) “How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.”

Limping is a good word. We become the walking wounded when we try to follow two gods. For example, our “lower case god” might be our schooling, our family, or maybe our career - our need for success. This turns into a spiritual tug-o-war where we are the rope being pulled in opposite directions.

As Josh said, “The enemy hunts when we live in two places at once.” It is literally impossible to multitask. When we concentrate on our career (or whatever our “little god” is), we’re not concentrating on God and that’s when Satan hunts us down.

God doesn’t want us to be lukewarm. He wants us to give ourselves 100% to Him. It’s time to give up multitasking and make that full commitment to God.

For much of the past ten years, we have been inundated with a steady stream of moral failings from leaders of all walks of life, and particularly in American churches. These failings have left many disillusioned and discouraged. This week, Josh will be teaching from the book of 2 Samuel with a look at the life of King David. What can we learn from being honest about his moral failures? What truths emerge that might impact how we process the failures that we see and experience often in the headlines today? How are we compelled to look also at our own hearts? Let’s talk about that and more as we continue our journey to Read Scripture in 2021.

We won’t get any lasting hope from our earthly kings, our politicians, and certainly not from our own all-too-human selves. You can’t have Jesus AND your old king. If we accept Christ as our King then we don’t need to pin our hope on any other authority.

Is it easy? Of course not. As the Bible says in Matthew 7:13-14: “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” It’s simple, but not easy. We are human, we get weak, we have doubts, maybe we find we’re going through the motions, but not living a truly Christian life. Regardless of our flaws, Jesus invites us to freedom. If we give up our control and give all to him, we will be saved.

1 Corinthians 15:52 “For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.” Rejoice with us today! He is risen!

Have you ever been an armchair quarterback or a backseat driver? These are the folks who don’t participate in an activity, but still criticize, thinking that they know better than the people doing it. I think if we’re honest, we’ll all admit we’ve done that.

It might be harder to admit if you ever armchair-quarterbacked God’s work. Josh asked us to remember that “God’s ways are better than our ways.” We all know that, right? Still, there are times when we try to tell God how to do His work. We try to shape His words to fit our personal needs at the moment. Hopefully, we’ll ultimately recognize that His way was right after all. We’ll admit that our backseat driving didn’t help God one bit.

His ways can certainly make us uncomfortable - but that doesn’t mean His ways are wrong. When we get tired of living on our own terms, making our own rules, and failing -- that’s when we need to put all our trust in God again. Will you trust Him even when it’s uncomfortable?

Jesus is our King everlasting. Believe it, accept it, live it!

Why is there a book in the Bible called Judges? Why was a judge even needed? God sent judges to the Israelites when they ignored God’s ways and lived their own willful, disobedient lives. God had to remind them of His love and call them to repent their sins.

The Israelites were supposed to eliminate the Canaanites, who worshipped other gods, but instead they kept some of them as slaves. The angel of the Lord warned them (Judges 2:1-3) “...they will become traps for you and their gods will become snares to you.” The Israelites couldn’t give up evil because they stayed close to the decay. As Josh told us, “My proximity to decay leads my heart for God astray.”

We cannot live pure, Godly lives if we keep company with those we know are ungodly. Like the proverbial bad apple, they will infect us. Do we have vices we can’t give up? Do we listen to people who don’t bring glory to God? It’s easy to drift away from who we want to be because, honestly, we enjoy our vices and we become comfortable with them. Some people will even fight their culture, their own families, to keep their sins, their guilty pleasures. We go astray and become immersed in our habits. It’s easier to hang out with the toxic people that support our evil behavior than to pull away and live the devout, pure life that God wants for us. So God gives us judges to save us from ourselves.

Now, Josh has a question for us: What weakness, what sin won’t you let go of? He asks us to be brave enough to go to a trusted friend, to talk about it, and to ask for help. Let’s turn away from the decay in our lives and bring our hearts back to God.

Throughout our lives, people face a near endless barrage of battles. Some of them are interpersonal, others marital, and far more are spiritual. This week, Josh takes us into the book of Joshua, beginning in chapter 6 as we discover two important truths that intersect all of those battles. There is one way to guarantee victory and one way to guarantee defeat. Join us as we discover how to find victory in this life and the life that is yet to come!

As Moses prepared to say goodbye at the end of his life to the nation of Israel he’d been leading for so long, he gave a series of speeches, final words for future generations. These final words make up the book of Deuteronomy and they convey a powerful message about how to live a life well-lived. This week, Josh takes us into Deuteronomy to reveal two key points that Moses urgently hoped they would take to heart. His words then continue to be vital to us today. Let’s talk about that!

The Book of Numbers tells the story of a massive group of people who were moved 40 times which is surely enough to test anyone’s patience. But when the people cried to Moses, “Why did you bring us here?”, they weren’t thinking about the destination that was promised to them by God. They were only complaining about the journey to get there.

How often do we complain about journeys in life, even when the end result was for the best? Each time we start a new journey, it should be with a prayer for God’s guidance. If we remember that He is with us, we can enjoy the scenery during our travels. He put us on that route for a reason and His blessings abound along the way, if only our eyes are open to them. Even more importantly, if we do believe in God’s Holy Word and if we do believe that Jesus is our shepherd to Him, then we also know that our final destination is everlasting life in God’s Kingdom. That journey is definitely worth making.

The Book of Numbers records a disaster due to unbelief resulting in catastrophic failure. A generation that had experienced deliverance from slavery turns into a group of malcontents. This discontent turned to disbelief and disobedience at the worst possible time. Instead of entering their promised destiny, they were doomed to wander in a desert for 40 years until they died. This disaster is given as a warning in Scripture for believers today. It is a shot across our spiritual bow. We can have it all and lose it all at the same time...but it doesn't have to happen.

This week, Josh brings a message from the book of Leviticus, a book which has confused Christians for hundreds of years. Is it relevant? Relatable? Does it matter today? The short answer is yes, but why? Join us as we discover the two things that Leviticus is most concerned with, why God is concerned with them, and what they reveal about Jesus!