Interiority is the very real terrain within us that can’t readily be seen – our thoughts, our feelings, our inner struggles, our dreams, our hopes, our self-knowledge. We often have a hard time living in touch with our interior-selves because the world around us is consumed with surface living. Many believe what we gain on the outside, will somehow address what we leave unaddressed on the inside. But what is addressed on the inside empowers us to address the surfacy world around us.

Too often the pace of our days is dictated by external demands that cause us to strive for success, but Jesus offers us a different rhythm in His divine invitation to selah. This is not a mere suggestion, but a prescription for the abundant life He ordained for us as we cease our grind and embrace the grace of the Father.

Mankind wasn’t created to work for God or apart from God. It has always been God’s intent that we would work with Him. When we ignore God’s sovereign position in creation and our lives by His mercy He works to remind us. As we enter chapter 40 of Isaiah, the prophet is prophesying of a time to come when Israel will find themselves in captivity due to their rebellion against their design and call to work with God. Like those who proceeded us we are designed to work with God, not for God and not apart from God.

In the new heaven and new earth believers will come to the end of human striving and experience creation as God intended – the ultimate place of rest. But God doesn’t want us to wait. He’s calling us to rest and cease from our works and ways now. Selah and rest are related. Selah is the practice of stopping, listening, being introspective, retrospective, and experiencing time in God’s presence as sacred – it is the pathway to ceasing from our works and entering into God’s rest. There are promises and a power in rest that can not be accessed by any other means.

We live in a hyper-paced, world filled with people striving to exchange time for value. The world in which we live doesn’t assign value to human beings; it assigns value to human doings. But the reality is, our human efforts and accomplishments can’t provide a lasting sense of worth and value. Jesus, the creator and architect of life, comes to deliver us out of the futility and vanity of this temporary world by bringing us into the rest of His eternal Kingdom – teaching us the power of selah. Jesus teaches us to live with just one concern.

Embracing an eternal perspective of success is one of the most transformative changes we make in our deliverance from a temporary view of life. We can’t consistently see life from an eternal perspective, if we’re entangled in temporary pursuits. Self-manufactured success gives us a fleeting sense of security and worth. It causes us to live pursuing the next thing and the next thing, over and over again like an addict trying to find lasting significance in a temporary world.

To live life as a follower of Jesus is to live beyond the seen realm. It’s to live in this world from the vantage point of another world. Our call is to live in this temporary world that’s passing with our eyes and hearts fixed on the eternal world and Kingdom to come. Living with an eternal perspective or for another world is to willingly lose our lives in this world that we might find the lives He created us for now and forever.

Death is one thing we can all be sure of. It is an inescapable truth we all must face. We will either embrace human speculation that when you’re dead you’re done or divine revelation that Jesus died and rose again -- so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him.

There are few things more important for us in this life than developing the character to see eternally, while hurting presently. Anybody can respond well and look good when things are going well, but pain and adversity expose us. True Christian character and deeply formed dependence comes from time spent with God and trust forged in adversity. To live as an overcomer in this world, we will have to learn to see eternally, even when we are hurting presently.

Although we live in a temporary world, our call is to live life from an eternal perspective. Life from a temporal, earthly perspective is lived clinging to this decaying world, believing we can find identity, worth and value pursuing what can be seen, owned and controlled. Living from an eternal perspective means living with our eyes fixed on the unseen realities and truths of God’s word and Kingdom. Living from an eternal perspective means living life from the inside out.

An eternal perspective is fixed on the unseen realities and truths of God’s Kingdom. It’s a view of life free from the limitations of the temporary, earthly pursuits that consume the lives of so many of us. An eternal perspective is a heart captivated by the reigning King of Kings who’s ushering His Kingdom into the earth. It’s a life lived longing for and pursuing the restoration of all things in the new heaven and the new earth.

In a day and age where our pace is driven by doing and achievement, how does one find space to discover or simply… be? Not only is rest vital for the health of our souls, it’s crucial to our identity and the sanctity of community. Could it be that our fruitfulness, multiplying and replenishing is not found in doing, but in rest? In other words, our doing should not be mutually exclusive from sabbath—a place of rest where the divine resides and we’ve been created to abide.

We are constantly bombarded with images, songs and media which strive to shape our hearts and minds to the world’s standards. They present to us what should be perceived as beautiful, desired, pursued and successful. But God’s standards are different! And as followers of Christ, we must aim to measure up to heaven’s standards for our lives and not the world’s.

The fall of mankind not only separated our lives from God and corrupted them with sin, it also corrupted the earth and everything in it. The earth is no longer a permanent place. We live between two eternal destinations – an eternity with God in the new heaven and the new earth and an eternity apart from God in the eternal torment of hell. This earth literally sits at an eternal crossroad and God calls us to seek those things which are above.

If our greatest hope in this life is something earthly, natural or temporary we haven’t embraced the greatest hope God has for us. He has prepared a place for us, a new heaven and a new earth where there will be no more sin, no more death, no more sorrow and no more pain. God will dwell with us there, we will be His people and there will be no end. When our greatest hope becomes this prepared place – the new heaven and the new earth – our lives in this temporary place is forever changed.

We were not designed for ourselves and our own glory. God designed us to interdependently bring Him glory. As we find our uniqueness in Christ, we also find what we’ve been uniquely given as a part of a greater whole. This Is Us reconstructs the beauty of us and we, while dismantling the heart crushing deception of me, me, me.

Before the foundation of the world, God existed completely united as one. God’s eternal purpose was to extend the union of the Godhead into the earth through Us, His image bearers. Satan has worked from the very beginning to break the unity God was extending through Us into the earth. Jesus waged war against Satan and the fallen angels with His cross, reconciling and restoring Us back to God. Today, we are fighting in a war already won — giving our lives to the reconciliation and the restoration of all things. This Is Us.

None of us are exempt from experiencing tragedies and traumas in life. And yet, because of our divine call, God has graced us with His love so that we are not imprisoned by our wounds, but empowered to live fearlessly under the influence of His Holy Spirit.

The Western world teaches us to focus almost entirely on self. Personal choice and personal happiness are celebrated, valued and exalted above nearly all else. This worldview and mindset aren’t unique to the secular world; it’s embraced and preached among the redeemed. But the shared calling on our lives will not be accomplished with a focus on self, personal choice or individual happiness – We have a shared, divine call.

Christians are called to be in this world but not of this world. Our union with Christ has made us distinct from all people, in all places. God has fashioned us in Himself and as we draw from the fullness of His powerful love — He is able to accomplish in and through us infinitely more than we could ask or think. While others draw from this world, we’ve been called to draw from Christ, the source of all life, love and power, that we might display His glorious wisdom established before the world began.

In a world full of possibilities and choices, we all end up in one of two categories — collaborators or perpetrators. Collaborators are those who surrender to the reality that God’s wisdom and glory exceed all other pursuits and in Him we find the truest version of ourselves. Perpetrators are those who choose the deception of being a god unto themselves, investing their lives in the pursuit of their own glory by their own wisdom — making themselves enemies of God. Collaborating or perpetrating is not a choice we make at once, it’s one we make day by day — to collaborate or to perpetrate, that is the question each our lives will ultimately answer.

Every day we make a myriad of decisions which impact our destiny. The mechanisms and parameters we employ to arrive at these decisions affect every area of our lives. As ambassadors of the Kingdom of Heaven, our God-King does not want us to walk through life making our decisions according to any current cultural, familial or national parameters or appetites, but He desires and requires that we Walk THIS Way!

We live in a time and age that puts so much emphasis on the individual and personal choice. Our focus on self tears at the very fabric of our design and human relationships. But God has called us together into something bigger than ourselves. And one of the keys to the eyes of our understanding being opened is the revelation of Us.

There are three sacred things that only the Heavenly Father can provide for us. Apart from them our lives are filled with disorder, inadequacy and purposelessness. And there are three significant things that our earthly fathers can provide for us that stabilize and advantage us in this world. We’re all in need of the Father Factor.

The hardships and suffering we experience in this world have a purpose that works for us and extends far beyond us. Our response to hardships and suffering shape us and set a stage for God’s glory and for God’s judgement to be revealed. God’s glory is revealed when we respond His way, with His words and His intent. God’s judgement is revealed to those who resist and refuse His way, words and intent. But the present suffering, hardships, glory and judgements are not worthy to be compared with what we will soon see — at His second coming.

So much of the culture wars of our day are about responsibility and culpability. Who’s at fault for the injustices and inequities that plague this world? Some lean towards seeing everything as a matter of individual responsibility — if they hadn’t been there, if they hadn’t done that, if they had worked harder or been smarter. Others lean towards seeing everything as systemic and structural — the deck is stacked, the system is broken, there's no justice for some. Both perspectives carry truth, but both are secular world views. The follower of Jesus is called to biblical responsibility — to participate, demonstrate and advocate for a way of life that is accountable for one another. We are one another’s keeper.

God is generous, God is just and equitable and God is our advocate. Biblical justice is the overflow of God’s character into our lives, our practices and our social structures. The follower of Jesus is called to be an advocate, one who stands against unjust, ungodly practices and systems that undermine the wellbeing and opportunities for flourishing in the lives of others. To be a follower of Jesus is to be one that speaks up, stands up and shows up for others but especially for the marginalized.

Pentecost Sunday - May 23rd, 2021

Justice in the eyes of God is not about us or anyone else getting what they deserve. Justice in God’s eyes is about us getting what He intended. Biblical justice is connected to the very character of God and its outworking in our everyday lives. If we are going to live justly and promote God’s brand of justice, we will answer the call to see our neighbor as those who bear His image and not our own.

For some, Mother’s Day is an opportunity to celebrate mom and our gratitude for her special place in our lives. For others, it’s a reminder of what they’ve lost or never had. To honor these intricately faceted perceptions of motherhood, we’ll host an up-close and personal panel discussion with women who’ll share their insights of A Legacy of Motherhood.

We all have felt dishonored by others in some form or fashion and instinctively want punishment for those who have hurt us. God wants to entrust us with greater grace and power. He wants to collaborate with us to execute His judgments and His justice in the world. But He will not trust us with greater power if we can not trust Him with our offenses.

What the world calls justice is typically not justice at all. It’s just vengeance carried out for us by someone else. Justice is often defined and described in terms of vengeance — they got what they deserved. But justice is not simply about them getting what they deserve. Justice is about us all getting what God intended. Justice, unlike vengeance, has two sides — a punitive side and a restorative side. True justice exists to make us whole. Justice For All.

The popular chant of so many protests and marches echos one being shouted from heaven right now — No justice. No peace. The difference is, heaven is longing for a justice and peace that doesn’t flow from the source of human vengeance, courts or laws. Heaven is shouting for a justice and peace that flows from the throne of God and the veins of Jesus. No justice. No peace.

If you’ve been deceived, manipulated, abused, shamed or hurt by someone, the instinct is to strike back. We want them to feel what we felt, lose what we lost, experience what we experienced. But the truth is they can’t give us back what we lost or feel what we’ve felt. We want it all back — but they can’t give it to us. They don’t have it and they never did.

Jesus’ first disciples were made part and privy to the greatest plot in human history. The plan of God to lift mankind out from under the eternal sentence of sin and death over our lives. It still remains God’s intent to use us in this — the most significant restoration project in the history of creation. But the same obstacles that stood opposing them in the first century, stands opposing us now — stones, demons and unbelief.

Good Friday: Seven Last Sayings of Jesus

The long awaited moment had come. Jesus, revealing Himself as Messiah to the city of Jerusalem and all gathered for the Passover celebration. They welcomed and made room for the King! But they pushed Him to the cross when His deliverance didn’t look like what they’d imagined and when His Kingdom wasn’t the Empire for which they’d longed.

So much of what we do today is a response to what was done to us in the past. It may sound over simplified, but we rehearse what they have done to us or we rehearse what Jesus has done for us. When we rehearse what they’ve done, we ultimately become the very thing we despise. But when we rehearse what He’s done, our lives increasingly become more than we could ever imagine.

In the Garden of Eden, Satan went to work planting seeds and causing division in the first family, our spiritual ancestors. He’s been at work ever since, planting destructive seeds in us too. We keep giving ourselves a pass when we don’t do what we’re feeling and rehearsing. But not doing what we want is not the same as doing what God desires.

Vengeance is one of the few things that God tells us not to do as He does. God is love and He calls us to love. God is generous and He calls us to generosity. God is merciful and He calls us to be merciful. God is holy and He call us to holiness. But vengeance is God’s alone. Yet, like the tree in the midst of the garden of Eden, it’s one of the things we find ourselves obsessed with. We must not allow vengeance to keep us from collaborating with God and from collaborating with one another. Vengeance is God’s alone.

Syncretism is the reckless blending of different often opposing views and beliefs into one new belief. Syncretism is deadly and it destroys the people of God. It destroys the flock of God. Jesus was diagnosing and prescribing a cure for the syncretism that was threatening to make His work ineffective in the hearts and lives of His disciples. We need the same diagnosis and prescription today. Are we called to self-help or self-sacrifice? Are we pursuing greatness in this world or the greatness of His Kingdom? They stand in direct opposition to one another and the two stand directly in front of us.

If you look closely at what we do, you will see a story revealing what we really want. Our wants and desires drive our lives and push us towards our choices. Typically all we want is the thing we could never seem to get. But what we do to get what we want, makes all the deference in our lives and this world. The question is not what will we do? The real question is what do we want?

Jesus demonstrates the power of one with His life. He leaves heaven and willingly lays down His life to rescue and redeem our lives. Too often we’re afraid and unwilling to lay down what we value. We too are called to give ourselves, to collaborate with God and extend His Kingdom one obedient step at a time. We are called to extend God’s Kingdom over building our empires.

Jesus called a little child into the conversation when His disciples asked Him, “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?” The people with child like faith may not look like much to the natural eye, but their level of trust, dependence and availability to God is what makes way for His glory — it allows God’s greatness to shine through their lives.

Jesus’ disciples had the desire for greatness, but they didn’t know what greatness was or how to achieve it. God alone defines greatness and He calls us to it, through collaboration with Him in childlike faith. This means, there will be times when we have to let go of what man calls good enough to embrace what God calls great.

One thing that hinders many from living with a child like dependence on God, is believing we have to look out for ourselves. The truth of the matter is we aren’t as capable of looking out for ourselves as we believe we are. In fact, looking out for number one is the very thing that keeps us from being the one. If only we knew and trusted how closely heaven watches and keeps us, we could take our rightful place as the one.

This year’s esteemed panelists will shed light on ways the “Drum Major Instinct” has led to the many disparities and inequities the pandemic and recent political turmoil unveiled, while highlighting the fact that "Everybody can be great because anybody can serve,” as Dr. King famously concluded.

In any partnership, it is imperative we agree on terms. We have heard repeatedly this week “words matter.” As believers, this is not news (life and death are in the power of the tongue) but prayerfully, in the course of the recent and coming messages, we are seeing with more acuity how this Truth matters to you and me.