The Connection Church

Negative, self-depreciating, or belittling thoughts should have no place in a Christian’s life. And it’s equally important that you never allow negative labels to be put on you by anyone else. When you wear negative labels, you allow people to control your destiny. People don’t control your destiny. You control your own destiny through the power of God’s Word.

According to Paul in Romans 5:17, “…those who receive abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life…” Every Christian should be walking in a grace that causes them to rule in their life. This includes ruling over sin. If grace is in abundance, how can sin stand? It can’t because grace does not accommodate sin; it faces it squarely and goes above sin in order to conquer it. If you have a sin problem, the solution is not a set of rules to control it, it’s more grace—a grace that reigns! If we think better, we will live better.

Bad theology has caused many believers to live a performance-based Christianity—always trying to be good enough in the eyes of an angry God. But the truth is we don’t serve an angry God that is judging us based on our performance. Our God is a loving Father whose desire is for all of His children to be free in Christ. Once we settle the issue of our righteousness, we will think better, and therefore live better.

Our minds are like a computer. Computers are designed and programmed to function a certain way. You can have the fastest hardware, but if you put the wrong software in it, it’s not going to function the way it was intended. Viruses can get into a perfectly good computer and start to contaminate the software. As believers, we have to guard our minds from viruses. One of these viruses is bad theology. Our theology needs to be right so we can think better, and when we think better, we will live better.

Who are you? Are you the sum of your successes? Or maybe a collection of your failures? The real question is: who are you because of Christ? This Sunday discover how to end the cycle of instability in your walk in Christ, once and for all. Discover who you really are, and find the rest and peace that we all long for as we continue our new sermon series: Think Better, Live Better!

Your thoughts have incredible power over your life. What you allow your mind to dwell on determines how you live—for better or worse. The good news is that God made you with the ability to control your thoughts. You are equipped to handle anything that comes your way, including the bad stuff. Jesus said, “you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” Anytime you think on what is true, you will live better. Join us Sunday as we begin a new sermon series: Think Better, Live Better!

We all begin at different places in life. None of us had the chance to choose where we were born or into what kind of family we were born. None of us got to choose our social or economic environment, the educational system we were thrust into, or the opportunities that we may have had early in life.

For many, it might seem that life is not fair. Regardless of our beginnings in this world, God has established a level playing field in His Kingdom.

Please enjoy this encouraging and challenging message from this morning’s guest speaker, Mark Shell.

In his letters, the apostle Paul, made statements like “if God be for us, who can be against us?” and “we are more than conquerors.” Where does the audacity and boldness to declare this come from? Does this mean that, like Paul and those early Christians, we have some sort of power that can lift us up above the often chaos and hopelessness in the world around us? Is this merely a power that we find from within ourselves? How can we tap into this power and the victory that comes with it to live the confident lives that we all long for?

Follower of Christ.Lover of God.Servant of the Most High.The most loving person.These are the things most Christians would want to be said about them long after they are gone. Unfortunately, for one of Jesus’ disciples, none of the above words are the first words that come to mind when remembering him. Because of one moment—one sentence—Thomas’ whole life has been summed up with a nickname that everyone in Christendom knows: the Doubter.But is the nickname fair?Should we remember Thomas as “the doubter”?What does God think about Thomas?This Sunday, we will complete our Easter sermon series, Jesus, by answering these questions and discovering how Thomas should be an inspiration to us all.