The primary evidence that your heart has been transformed by God's grace is how you love your enemies.

The city of Akron is in the midst of a rise in gun violence. We can all agree it's a problem, but as soon as we start talking about how to fix it, we start arguing. But before we answer the how question we have to answer a deeper question: What's God's heart? The transformation of Nineveh in Jonah 3 shows us God's heart is for both social justice and spiritual transformation in our city. 

Jonah hits rock bottom in chapter 2: all his options have run out and he's forced to confront the reality of his life. When you're at rock bottom, it feels hopeless, desperate, and uncertain. But every significant character in the biblical story finds themselves at rock bottom at one point or another and they all discover the same two things: our need and God's strength. 

When asked who he is, Jonah only gives two details: he's a Hebrew and he fears God. But does he? Everything about the story so far shows us he's deluded. He thinks because he's from the right cultural group he's right with God. When we center our culture rather than Jesus, we blind ourselves to our need and to the way God works through people who are different than us. 

What do you do when God asks you to do something hard? That's the question Jonah faces when God shows up and tells him to go to Nineveh, the city of his violent enemies. We often do what Jonah does - going the opposite direction toward what we think will make us happy or content, because we don't trust that God's heart and purpose for us is really for our good. While we're lulled to sleep by sin, God's love for us won't leave us alone.

When life gets chaotic, we seek shelter - a place we can run to where we know we’ll be safe. But what if the place you run to doesn’t hold up? Psalm 91 is a song about seeking refuge in the only place that will hold - the love of God.

Psalm 24 invites us to consider a mountain - a bigger mountain than anyone of us can climb. Whoever gets to the top of the mountain is blessed, so how do you get there? Only those who have clean hands and a pure heart are allowed in. We can't do it alone.

What does it mean to be a church in and for the neighborhood? Contextualization is understanding the culture of where you live and engaging that culture to help people see Jesus. In Acts 17, the Apostle Paul gives us a blueprint for how to engage the world around us so people find Jesus.

Humans have been searching for something more as long as we’ve been around. But what if we actually don’t want to find what it is we’re looking for? In Psalm 19, David is searching the night sky only to discover that not only is it God who is out there, God is pursuing David. And when God finds you, everything changes.