Two things must occur for us to walk in spiritual breakthrough: 1) we must remain desperate for the presence and power of Jesus and 2) we must ignore any and all voices that seek to talk us down from that inner desperation. We are all presently experiencing as much of God as we long for. If we can live without His touch, we will. If we cannot live without the hand of God on us, we will hunger and thirst…and then we will be touched and filled. One man’s example of desperation and determination for a touch from Jesus serves as a stirring example of how we must always press in, especially when those around us prefer that we stay where we currently are. Listen, learn, and lean in to receive what this man put on display.

God is always working to strengthen our trust-muscle. As in the physical realm, heavy weights are used to stretch and break down muscle each time we workout. When those broken down muscles repair themselves per God’s design, they are tighter, bigger and stronger. The fact of the matter is that physical muscles do not grow bigger without weight, resistance, and breaking down. This is also true in the spiritual realm. God intentionally uses heavily weighted circumstances to strengthen our trust. Resistance makes our trust-muscle larger. He breaks us down from where we were in order to build us up to where He has appointed us. The stretching and heaviness are the methods that God employs to build our ongoing trust in Him. Right now, there are plenty of heavy forces working to break us down. God wants to use those forces to build us up. This message reminds us that God is not working on us from a distance, but that He is actually as close to us in the Spirit as any personal trainer would be to us in the gym. He calls us to deeper levels of trust and empowers us to respond to Him by promising to always be by our side.

We should not glamorize or romanticize the early Church - they had major issues just like we do today. If we go back 2,000 years in Church history, you will find there a problem that is still around today. One of these problems is our tendency to divide and fragment the unity of the Body of Christ based on what particular leader (or what type of leader) we think is the best suited to lead us. Jesus first followers had a major problem with envy for positions, leader-worshipping, and faulty awareness of inferior motivations for Kingdom ministry. What is the cure for these types of ills? Remaining centered on the person of Christ, and remaining tenaciously committed to the big-picture of the Kingdom no matter what others might be doing around you. In the end, the words of Jesus and the Apostle Paul empower us today to miss the landmines that the early Church repeatedly stepped on.

In this second of three messages concerning how Christians are to handle their disagreements about things not specifically mentioned in Scripture, we follow up on the previous message which introduced us to two groups: Christians with a free conscience & Christians with a fragile conscience. God’s word places a much higher responsibility on Christians whose consciences allow them greater levels of personal liberty. These Christians are commanded to deeply consider the examples they are setting wherever they utilize their freedom. Could their example cause weaker believers to struggle? Do these free believers assume that God has given the same liberties to all others which He has given to them? Are liberated Christians willing to set aside their liberties in order to seek the highest good of other believers? Just because we are free does not guarantee that we are mature! This message will challenge all of us to consider how we are living out our testimonies as Jesus-followers before the eyes of other people.

An ancient man with a funny named believed in freedom.  Nearly 2500 years ago Zerubbabel left an easier life in the Persian Empire and traveled to a desolate city - the city of his fathers - to build a temple for God in Jerusalem. He left with great zeal and visions of the splendor of a restored glory to the city of God and its people. Yet when the difficult task of rebuilding the temple began, Zerubbabel encountered a massive mountain of obstacles. God then sends a word through His prophet to encourage Zerubbabel to put his hands to this great work and continue to spend himself for something greater than himself. The mountain of difficulty was immense indeed, but the grace of God was waiting to do something that had eluded Israel for nearly 100 years. It was time for God to work, and he called his man to embrace the challenge. In the face of immovable mountains, God has never flinched. Not for Zerubbabel in his day, and not for you today.

We have all heard sermons and teachings about unity within the Body of Christ. Unity is essential to God being glorified from the interactive life of a body of believers. But do we have to agree about everything? What about our personal opinions on issues? The Bible doesn’t speak precisely on every single matter about which Christians must develop a position or opinion. Are we ever free to disagree? The answer is YES. Christians can and do disagree about many issues concerning which the Bible does not offer a clear position. We are permitted to disagree, but how we treat those with whom we disagree is crucial. It is possible for us to have the right answers but an entirely wrong spirit towards those whom we consider to be wrong on the matter. The Apostle Paul’s words in Romans 14:1-13 give powerful instruction about how to handle our differences of opinions with other believers.

There is a flagrant misrepresentation of God that has been aggressively communicated for many years in America. This presentation of God as the always happy, never angered, gleefully indulgent Papa in Heaven has produced some terrible fruit among professing Christians. God, in this false belief system about Him, is a naive enabler of wrongdoings among His children. They believe He never goes to extreme measures to correct us. Because of this, the Church is terribly polluted with sin and error that has weakened us in both our representation of Christ and our warfare against the enemy. What does the Bible actually teach about what God does when His children persist in sin? How can we recognize His correcting hand among us? How must we respond when the Father works to discipline us, and to bring us home from our waywardness? Is His correction of us actually a rejection of us? Three verses from Hosea’s prophetic book will help us discern both the heart and hand of God toward those among His children who have strayed.

It might sound somewhat simplistic to some, but it really is true that each Christian's life can be summed up with the headline of, "I am a Jesus-follower." As we enter into relationship with Jesus Christ by faith, Heaven's expectation is that we live all our days following Him in trusting obedience. As we all commit to keep our eyes on Jesus, many potential distractions come along that can result in us getting off track. One of the most common and lethal distractions to those who are to follow Jesus is our tendency to fixate upon what is happening with other people. The life of a Jesus-follower requires intense focus on the Lord as He leads us. When we become distracted by how He is leading others, or the degree to which we believe they are faithfully following Him, we become sidetracked as we take our eyes off of Him. No clearer example of this danger is found in Scripture than that of the Apostle Peter. From this pivotal moment in his life, we see how easy it is to get distracted from following Jesus, and how intense Jesus is in His command for us to keep our eyes on Him.

Few Christians have ever had it as easy as the believers in America have had it over the last 250 years. Because we have lived out our faith in a nation that has historically favored Christ, His good news, and His people, the American Church has grown accustomed to enjoying easy faith. Those times of national ease are already fading, and as we approach the end of the age, they will eventually give place to the type of Christianity that has been lived out in other parts of the globe for the last 2,000 years. It will be comparatively far more difficult than any of us have experienced as we follow Christ. How can we prepare now for what must come? The Apostle James trains us in how to handle troubled waters in our own individual lives. His counsel will ready us and steady us so that we finish our races for the glory of Jesus. We will cross the finish line faithful, fervent, and filled. We will not be casualties of the spiritual war raging against us. We will enter into the presence of our King to receive the rewards He has prepared for us. But we must be prepared ahead of time, and the words of James will help us.

We should not glamorize or romanticize the early Church - they had major issues just like we do today. If we go back 2,000 years in Church history, you will find there a problem that is still around today. One of these problems is our tendency to divide and fragment the unity of the Body of Christ based on what particular leader (or what type of leader) we think is the best suited to lead us. Jesus first followers had a major problem with envy for positions, leader-worshipping, and faulty awareness of inferior motivations for Kingdom ministry. What is the cure for these types of ills? Remaining centered on the person of Christ, and remaining tenaciously committed to the big-picture of the Kingdom no matter what others might be doing around you. In the end, the words of Jesus and the Apostle Paul empower us today to miss the landmines that the early Church repeatedly stepped on.