We live in a day where innumerable people are living to gain a following. Social media and other elements in our culture seek to train us that the more attention we receive from people, the more valuable we are in life. Because of this, our culture has become one of disastrous self-promotion. Boastful hearts present themselves in the most beautiful and powerful ways in order to gain the adoration and applause of the masses. The Christian must separate himself/herself from this fleshly trend. We are of a different Spirit than the world around us. If we are to boast, we must ensure that our boast is of the Lord. Our lives are meant to present Him as beautiful, powerful and worthy of adoration. Psalm 145 provides us a powerful resource for making our holy boast to those around us. Doing this will transform the entirety of the Christian’s life and testimony.

The reason why Psalm 51 is historically famous and frequently taught is because it is ALWAYS relevant. Who among us would dare to proclaim that they never sin? None of us live perfectly as Jesus-followers. We cannot truthfully say that every thought, word, and deed that flows from our lives meets the holy standard of sinless perfection. Though we have been made new in Christ, our flesh still rages against the Spirit of God, and there are times when we cooperate with those impulses that were common in our lives before we came to Jesus. Psalm 51 reveals what we need to do when we fail God and sin. David’s words must become ours as we move from sin into repentance, and from repentance into renewed fellowship with our merciful Savior. Psalm 51 lends hope to those who have sinned.

There are moments in which Jesus doesn’t seem to us like…well, Jesus. Most of the times, when Jesus had to issue stern corrections or teach hard truths, we can find ourselves squirming. When Peter chose to defy something important that Jesus was teaching His closest disciples, the Savior took swift action to remind Peter that He was not only the Savior but also Peter’s MASTER. From that interaction, Jesus also taught all of us what is required to follow Him. His words reveal the intensity of His expectation for all who are considering what it means to come and follow Jesus with the rest of their lives.

The good news is that you are not alone in your desire to have a problem-free life. We all desire this. The bad news is that you will never experience this until your life on earth concludes. There is no getting around it: being a follower of Jesus does not immunize us in any way from problems and pain in life. For those who live by faith in the goodness of God, there is an offer to us from Heaven to enter into a deeper understanding of why God allows problems in our lives. In the Kingdom, it is a difficult-to-embrace truth that God intentionally ordains that all His children live with some level of undeniable weakness. He leave sis with limitations. The testimony of the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 12 helps us to learn from his extreme privileges as a follower of Jesus, and his example of suffering for Christ as we consider our own apportioned troubles that God permits to find us. The treasure is well worth the trouble.

Christianity is a journey that never ends. The intention of Jesus is that we experience an abundant life which streams forth from the moment we receive eternal life. The OT prophet Ezekiel was given a vision of a river flowing from the temple of God and, the farther out it streamed, the deeper it became. From this passage of Scripture, we learn that Jesus Christ beckons us all to leave the shallows and to enter into the depths where we become beautifully in over our heads.

Man’s religious ways have always been a road-block to us walking freely and joyfully on the King’s highway. In a famous encounter with a man named Nicodemus, Jesus unpacks several important keys to the Kingdom that benefit all of us who can receive them. One ongoing work of God the Spirit is to humble the religious mind. If modern Christians could cooperate with intentional activity of God to humble us from our religious pride and presumptions, awakening and revival would more powerfully break forth in our generation.

When the Christian studies the life of Jesus in the Gospels, we not only see the divine aspects of Jesus as the God-man, but we also are able to learn from Him as the perfect human. Jesus experienced all that we experience as people living on earth. He was both loved and rejected. He was both believed and scorned. He was misunderstood, misrepresented, and mistreated. Yet, in all of His encounters with people, Jesus remained amazingly committed to fulfilling the mission the Father had given Him. So must we as His followers. This snapshot from Mark’s Gospel reveals how we cannot allow opposition, rejection, and ridicule from others to move us off our marks. We must remain relentless to finish the works assigned to us. Jesus not only exemplifies to us how to do this, He empowers us to continue forward and to finish well.

Each of us is comprised by several components of what it means to be human. We have a physical body. We also have emotional capacity - we feel. Additionally, we have minds that form and flow nearly all of our daily living - we think. Finally, we are governed by our will - we decide. Humans are complex, and the desire of God is that on top of the body, emotions, mind, and will would rest the leadership of Holy Spirit as He works through our human spirit. This episode of Truth Shots takes a deeper look at one of the components which helps to make up who we are and how we live: The Mind. How do you think? Upon what do you most often center your mind? Are you intentional about what you allow your thoughts to fixate upon? How a person thinks is perhaps the most crucial part of us. We will not perpetually live above the level of what occupies our thoughts. The Scriptures give us loads of counsel about how to establish and govern our thought-life. In this message, we will unpack five of these biblical passages of truth to help us with our own minds and the daily thoughts within them.

One would have thought that when Jesus Christ began ministering, everybody would have been thrilled. The long-awaited Messiah had come and was working the acts of divine love and power. Yet, the demonic realm was both fearful and furious, fighting Jesus at every opportunity. One of the chief means by which Satan resisted Jesus was to harness religious leaders to constantly oppose Him. There were a few occasions when Jesus walked away from the blind religious leaders, but most of the time, He pushed back and gave them something to think about. In this message, Jesus chooses the crushing needs of a singular woman to be prioritized over the opposition of the religious hypocrites. She gets a brand-new life, and the hypocrites get an undeniable miracle placed before them for their consideration. When Jesus is determined to deliver, no demon or religious force will stop Him.

Every Christian wants Jesus to be actively moving and working in their own lives and in the church where they worship and serve. We all want to see the power and authority of our King on display. When Jesus is in the building, we should expect to see fruit from His presence within us and among us. In a familiar passage from Luke, we learn that Jesus’ authority and power are often resisted by multiple factors. The gospels portray the reality that, just because Jesus is present, there is no guarantee of displays of His power. What can oppose what He desires to do? This passage reveals what serves as an obstacle to His power, what we need to do to avoid that obstacle, and what Jesus does when He has determined not to let that obstacle have the final word.