It's that time of year again: the time people take stock of their lives, find a goal to pursue, and make a plan to achieve it. We do this with our health, our relationships, and our money, but how many of us do this with our spiritual lives? What might it look like to resolve to live a full life in 2020?

Check out Part Three of Alpine's series, "A Thrill of Hope", and join us as we celebrate Christmas 2019.

Would people call you a joyful person? Not many people feel like they can say "Yes!" For followers of Jesus, though, joy isn't optional. It's essential. The key is realizing that joy isn't meant to be a burden. It's an invitation to see Jesus in every part of life.

Entire industries today are built around the drive for security: physical, financial, emotional, and spiritual. As we pour our time and energy into security, though, we only find our anxiety increasing. The hope that Jesus offers us breaks through our fears and fills us with a confident expectation that gives us peace.

We can all remember or imagine an experience of amazing hospitality. Moments like that don't happen by accident. Behind every act of hospitality is a host who puts the time, energy, and attention into creating spaces where people are taken care of. While culture treats this kind of hospitality like a competition, Jesus shows us that hospitality is a reflection of who God is and an opportunity to share his love with the people in our lives.

We all look at Thanksgiving a little differently but everyone wrestles with the same thing this time of year: gratitude. Whether it's busyness, entitlement, or familiarity, we all get distracted from our opportunities to be grateful. In the middle of the "Holiday Hustle", it's important to spend some time thinking about something that happened in the life of Jesus: a moment in time that can help us make sense of what it looks like to give thanks.

We tend to define "church" using boxes and lines. Buildings. Beliefs. Locations. Denominations. "My church" versus "your church". The way that Jesus talks about "church", though, it's not a place you go. It's something you're a part of. And someone you belong to.

Every morning we wake up to a fight. We may not see it. We may not realize it. But we all feel it. We are in a fight for our souls. It's not just a fight for ourselves, though: it's a fight for our neighbors, our friends, and even our own families. The fight is against despair and despair never takes a day off. Which is why as a church, we fight a 24/7 fight for HOPE.

Hope isn't something that God just gives to everyone else. Hope is something God has for YOU. His character and promises give us a confident expectation of a better tomorrow that we then get to share with others. And it all starts when we choose to get real about the brokenness in every part of our lives.