There’s no time like New Year’s Day to start building a good habit into your life. There’s no better habit to build into your life than daily consumption of God’s word! Check out the “2012 Bible Reading Plan” tab just added above for a link to a 1-year chronological Bible reading schedule. Hopefully instead of overwhelmed, you will be pleasantly surprised how…

In a brief but prophetically significant encounter an old man named Simeon declares the freshly-circumcised baby Jesus to be the “salvation” of God establishing Jesus not only as the continuation of God’s grand redemptive plan which began to unfold with God’s covenant with Abram hundreds of years earlier but also as the completion of that plan “prepared in the presence of all…

I’m not big on tests or exams, and you probably aren’t either, but Paul calls Christians to “examine [our]selves to see if [we] are in the faith” in II Corinthians 13.  It’s not a scare tactic; Paul just urgently wanted the Corinthian Christians to discover afresh the fact that Jesus Christ was in them–and to live like it! This awareness is essential…

Ever just feel weak? inadequate? While every voice in our culture would say: “How dare you feel that about yourself; get up, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps and get in the game! Just give 110% and it’ll pay off eventually,” for some reason that’s not what you feel in the depths of your soul. The boot-strap logic of self-sufficiency may…

Giving of ourselves isn’t always easy. In fact (let’s be honest about human nature) giving to others is just plain hard in a lot of situations, especially when there’s no immediate return on the investment for one’s self, or when it may actually cost you deeply. But this is precisely what Christ-followers are called to do! In II Corinthians chapter 9 the…

Ever feel like you just need a little perspective, an anchor point amid life’s struggles? Do you ever feel the need to get to the crest of a mountain where you can take a deep breath and elevate your mind and spirit above the crud of day-to-day life? The apostle Paul gives us just such a summit in II Corinthians 5:1: “For…

A big THANKS! to everyone who helped put together our second annual Fall Festival this past Sunday evening.  Paula Hodkinson claimed her first ever golden ladle as our 2011 “Chili Champ” with Christine Strnisa and Tiffany Perala coming in a close second and third. Jon Ortiz retained his title of Cornhole Champ (along with some help from his good friend Jeremiah from…

This past Sunday (Oct. 9, 2011) in a message titled “We Do Not Lose Heart”, I spoke from II Corinthians 4, a chapter packed with encouragement for Christians to persevere and finish well the gospel task laid before us by Christ. As Paul talks about his love for and self-sacrificial service to the Corinthian believers he says in v. 15: “For it…

The apostle Paul writes in His second letter to the church at Corinth (II Corinthians 2:14-16) about being the “aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing…” and that God uses Christians to “spread the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ everywhere.” It’s ultra important that as followers of Christ we realize that…