The Well - Messages

We are all called to make a difference and to leave a legacy - which is when our life has an impact that lives on after we are gone. Everyone can give and live extravagantly. It’s not about the dollar amount, it’s about the way you sacrifice in order to make a difference.

We all have difficult people in our lives. We all know people who just know how to push our buttons and get us to respond in ways that makes us feel ashamed. God calls us to be a blessing to everyone, but how do we bless people who drive us crazy? This week we will figure out how we are to Deal with Difficult People.

Time and Money! There just never seems to be enough of either. What that means is that we end up wasting both trying to find peace. But that isn’t God’s design. The difference in the truth we hold and the truth we live become the pain we experience. But in the midst of this, God is calling us to rest, replenish, and refocus. To the degree we can do it, we will know peace.

“Why am I here?” - That is one of the most important questions we can ask in life. Christianity claims to have the answer, not just in general terms, but specific to each person's life. So how can we know God’s will and plan for our lives? We have a number of tools that God has given us. This week we will really dial into them so we can sense peace and certainty for our lives today and for the future.

After discussing the importance of belief in miracles for the first three weeks of the series, Miracles?, we have grown to understand that there can be there can be no faith, no Christian hope, no Christianity apart from a robust belief in a personal, supernatural, interventionist God at its center. But even with that belief, sometimes we find ourselves in the midst of waiting for that miracle we want. What does it look like to see a miracle come after waiting? What does it look like to discover a miracle in the waiting? When we are waiting and hoping for that miracle, how do we wait well?

Miracles of the “New Creation” are the truly tough ones for us to consider. Because they require us to believe in things that would never and could never happen on their own. They force natural processes to be suspended, turned back, or broken. They violate not only our natural laws, but our instinctive logic of a thing. Yet, without them all our hope for the future and hope we have in Christ is lost. No matter how hard we try, we can’t parse them out and lay hold of the Promises of God. Once again we are forced to embrace the supernatural - or forfeit faith.

What is a miracle anyway? What is happening to the created order when miracles are taking place? Are they “violations” as some have called them? What if they were a thing with Jesus, but only with Him? What difference does it make for my life and is there an effect from my incredulousness or unbelief?

In our postmodern world, miracles and the supernatural are, at times, treated with the same level of thoughtful reflection as vampires and zombies. They may be popular, but anyone who takes them “too seriously” is treated as a pariah. So how should we treat and think about the miracles of the Bible? Are they just illustrative stories - hyperboles or metaphors? Does it matter? Do we have to believe in miracles to believe in Jesus? This month we will be looking at these questions and see if there is any proof for the existence of the supernatural.

Even in midst of this world’s disappointments, life is great when you know where you are going and why! It’s even better when you know nothing will keep you from getting there! This is the promise of the values we hold. Once we have embraced the first four core values, the last will become a byproduct of the others working in our lives.

Have you noticed the longer someone spends time with someone else the more of their mannerism, colloquialisms, and even their attitudes they begin to “pick-up”. This can happen “accidentally” but it doesn’t have to. We can impart the attitude and outlook we want the next generation to have with how and who we are with them.