Though many people initially followed Jesus, it became evident that they sought Him for temporal provision. When Jesus offered Himself as the bread of life, the people turned away. They revealed the idolatrous nature of their hearts by seeking the gift rather than the giver--the creation rather than the Creator.

Keywords: Idolatry, idols, worship, bread, miracles

When Christians think like the world, they will learn to value and prioritize like the world and love the world. Sadly this will lead to a wasted life.

Keywords: Thinking, worldliness, treasures, loving the world, friend of the world

No one can actually see God. They can read of him in scripture, but he is not visible. Believers have the opportunity to reveal God to the world as they exemplify his character through love.

Keywords: Love, Abiding, Fear

Often we can say Love my neighbor – yeah, but you don’t understand! You don’t have a situation like I have in my life right now! And yet, it is amazing how relevant verses like these are to people who are given to excuses. We cannot excuse our wrong responses. We are bought with a price and belong to our Savior. We are going to see three different responses that Scripture gives us in living a gospel-transformed life of love: a supernatural response, a humble response and a good response.

Keywords: Forgiveness, responses, vengeance, love

Jesus condemned the Pharisees for loving the approval of man over the praise of God. We can learn from Jesus instruction to identify areas in our hearts that practice people pleasing as the Pharisees did. Rather than being proud and self-seeking, we can learn to love others by being humble servants.

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As Christians we must evaluate whether we are thinking as a Christian, meaning our minds are biblically informed on all topics, or we can think secularly about all things, including Christian topics. This lesson explains and encourages the need to feed all our thoughts through the grid of God's Word.

Keywords: Christian thinking, secular thinking, purity, righteousness, hope, redeem, mind of Christ

Much of our problem is that we have strong thoughts about the wrong things. The gospel needs to fill our thoughts and desires. It needs to have first place driving our love for Jesus Christ and motivating sacrificial humble worship of him that results in love for his word and obedience to all he has commanded.

Keywords: Gospel, thinking, thoughts, sinner, Savior, identity in Christ, values, priority

What completes your joy? Is it a checklist that has every item checked off? Is it a clean, peaceful home? Or is it getting away from it all for a weekend? What would you tell others would complete your joy? In our passage, Paul reveals to the Philippian church what would make his joy complete. And it isn’t centered on a delightful meal or even a sweet family gathering. We will see that Paul’s joy was not yet complete – he urges the church of Philippi to complete his joy by being unified which had three components – 1. it was based on unifying foundational truths, 2. had unified actions based on those foundational truths and 3. measures to protect that unity.

Keywords: Joy, Unity in Christ, Church life

To possess true biblical love, we need to understand the cost involved. The greater our love for God, the greater our willingness to sacrifice all for Him. Our love for Jesus Christ should grow to such a degree that love for self vanishes as we willingly sacrifice all for the sake of following our Savior.

Keywords: Cost, discipleship, family, self, cross, suffer, sacrifice, love

A comparison is made between the history of Christianity in America and the Israelites from Hosea 4:1-6. As the Israelites forgot God in their prosperity, their knowledge of Him diminished leading to idol worship. We see a similar pattern in American Christian culture and would be wise to heed the warnings given to the Israelites.

Keywords: Knowledge, ignorance, forgetting, idolatry