Today we begin a new message series called “40 Days with Jesus.” I believe the content of this series has the potential to make a radical difference in the lives of everyone here. Why? Because we’re going to be studying the most famous teaching of Jesus called the Sermon on the Mount. This teaching of Jesus is found in Matthew 5-7 and we’ll be going through these 3 chapters verse by verse over the next 40 days or so in October and November. …
Life is getting busier and more hectic with each passing year. How many would agree with that? It seems as though the time in a day is shrinking every month. The night arrives before we have time to get everything done. So it’s important that we spend the time that God has given us doing the most profitable things. One of the things that God has designed to help you be successful in life is church. Yet even in the days of the Bible, people had a problem with going to church. …
Prayer is one of the most important activities that a believer can do. Prayer can be defined simply as talking and listening to God. There are many aspects to prayer. In the Lord’s prayer, Jesus teaches us about five aspects of prayer. The first aspect is praising God for who He is. Next is committing yourself to God’s purpose in this world. Third is requesting something from God. Fourth is asking for forgiveness for sin committed. And finally, prayer asks for protection from sin and evil. …
Everyone has temptations, Jesus had temptations, I have temptations, you have temptations. Temptations are part of life, you can’t get away from them. Temptations come in all sorts of sizes and flavors. The traditional seven deadly sins are: pride, envy, anger, laziness, greed, gluttony and lust. Those cover a lot of our temptations.
Temptations come at us in an instant. We often don’t take time to think things through, we just react and give into temptation. Someone says something sharp to us and we speak back in anger. …
God uses a number of tools to help each person grow during their lives. God has a plan and purpose for your life. The only way that you’re going to accomplish that purpose is for you to continue to grow. Growth is a lifelong process. It takes work, you’ve got to stick with it, but the results will last forever. People who are growing are people who are learning to love God and others. People who don’t want to change are stuck in the rut of life, not a great place to be.
…
God wants you to grow in every dimension of your life and growth involves change. Growth and change are good things, they will make your life better. However we tend to resist change. We don’t want to change, we just want our circumstances to change. God doesn’t work that way. He’s more interested in you changing than your circumstances changing.
Some time ago, one of my children was preparing something for us to eat. They asked Carol if she had any more garlic. She said no, but she thought we had enough. Our child said they needed more, so Carol checked what they were doing. The recipe had called for 1 teaspoon of garlic as seasoning, but our child had interpreted it as 1 cup of garlic. That was just a bit too much, so the dish was ruined. …
