At the Cross: Recent Episodes
At the Cross
Life doesn’t always go the way we expect, and we pray to God for help and guidance. But sometimes it seems like even though we pray with faith, God doesn’t do what we've asked. We seek Him, but don’t feel His presence. We go through pain, but our cries for relief seem to go unanswered. Sometimes, our lives just don't make sense.
In this three-week series, Pastor Nick Davis takes a close look at what we can do "When God Doesn't Make Sense". Topics cover the delays and changes we sometimes experience when we surrender our lives to God's planning.
It takes faith beyond ourselves to believe we can do incredible things, and it takes a power beyond ourselves to do them. In the right hands, the ordinary can be extraordinary. Join us tomorrow (12.30.18) to see how a simple twig can be more than Just a Stick.
You know the feeling. The one you get when you think you’re not good enough. The one that convinces you you’ve done something too awful to forgive. That’s shame holding you back. And it’s time to break free and start living Unashamed
Shame Off You
I spent the first twenty-two years of my life shackled by shame. Looking back, I realize I had always felt it. It had been a part of my life from my earliest memories.
I felt it when I was rejected. Made to feel unworthy. Of no value. I felt it when I was abused. And couldn’t tell anyone. And believed it was somehow my fault. I felt it when I tried to hide who I was, apologize for who I was, minimize my talents, or overachieve and compensate for feeling somehow “less than.” Have you felt it? If you’re human, you have—and the result is always the same.
Shame makes us feel small. Flawed. Not good enough. And controlled. Shame is the fear of being unworthy, and it adversely affects our relationship with God, ourselves, and others.
Gomer
She stands outside in the cool, refreshing rain, allowing it to run in rivulets across her cheeks and down her lips. She is like the lily of the valley that spreads its fragrance across the fields or like the lush, abundant grapes that make men glad. Fertility and fruitfulness, celebration and wild abandon—these are the forces that rise and surge within her.
Young, beautiful, and bold, she is always smiling, flashing her big, dark eyes, attracting inevitable attention. God knows how easy it would be to entice her admirers into showering her with gifts of silver and gold. She is determined to squeeze every ounce of sweetness from life.
Suddenly she notices a man hurrying toward her. It is not desire that propels him but pain.
“Gomer,” he says, “come home!”
And so she does, but reluctantly. Her husband Hosea is a good man, but goodness can be tiresome. He talks only of God and of faithfulness to the covenant, dampening her high spirits and making her feel ashamed of
The Danger of Hypocrisy
Hypocrisy. It’s when hands lifted in praise have been earlier used for sin. It’s when lips proclaiming praise had hours earlier been used for insults. It’s when one’s reputation and one’s character are vastly different. The Pharisees were condemned for their hypocrisy. We read the stories of their encounters with Jesus and shake our heads at how far off they were from the truth without realizing that that is why they were condemned in the first place. Today, we need to evaluate and see if our lifestyle is different than that of the hypocritical Pharisees. Are we living lives of integrity?
Read Jesus’ words in Matthew 15:1-9.
Jesus condemned the Pharisees because they were more focused on people breaking their traditions than God’s commandments. It infuriated them that Jesus’ disciples did not follow protocol when it came to washing of hands and the manner in which they ate. Jesus was exhausted from their unwillingness to see the big picture.
WORSHIPING FACEDOWN
Worship can only be fuelled by revelation. True revelation of God brings us into a place of reverent awe of Him and an understanding of who we are in the light of who He is. Although facedown is a physical posture where the worshiper prostrates before God, it is a spiritual position we must live day in and day out of reverent submission of His Kingship. Facedown is a symbol of total surrender and helplessness. The King identifies with His subjects when they are bowed down at His arrival and He looks on at all that belongs to Him.
When we worship God, we must reverence him in revelation of how mighty He is and how insignificant we are. God is the King of the universe and all creation inevitably bows down before His Majesty. Jesus is the King of all Kings and Lord of all Lords (Rev 17:14, 19:16,) and the scripture says that “One day, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess to Him (Isa 45:23, Rom 14:11, Phi 2:10).” That is the future.
From This Day Forward
Whether or not you’re married now, did you ever daydream about what your marriage might look like? What kind of person your spouse would be? What sort of relationship you’d have together? Even whether you’d have children and where you’d live? Now think about the life you have today. When our realities don’t live up to our dreams, what can we do about it?
Marriage vows often include phrases like “for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health.” Relationships contain all of those things. No matter what circumstances, choices, shortcomings, or surprises may have landed us in a less-than-dreamy present, we can’t look to the past to make it better. We can only commit to a better future starting now — “from this day forward.”
If having the marriage of your dreams were easy, you’d already have it, right? If you don’t have the strength, you’ll have to learn to rely on Christ’s strength, which is always enough.
Do you believe in miracles? Chalk it up to coincidence or luck if you want, but we think there’s something bigger going on when the impossible happens. A four-week series centering on wonder and joy, When Pigs Fly is all about appreciating the fantastic, crazy, outlandish miracles that really happen and opening our eyes to the miraculous work Jesus can do in our hearts.
Broken, vulnerable, and in need of compassion – we can find ourselves in places we didn’t expect to be. But that doesn’t have to be the end of our story. Through the story of Mephibosheth, learn how God uses the Unlikely to do great things.
This week we pray for each other, that we are active in shaing our Faith "so that" we will have a deepening understanding of every good thing we have in Christ
On our own "we" are not Disciplined. But through Christ Jesus our Lord we can be Spirit-Disciplined
Brother Tom Smith quest preaches this week as he outlines Jesus's lesson (on the mount) as He reminds us of our true value. The Lilies of the field and the Birds of the air are regaurded as teachers in guiding the way forward. Are you ready to look to their example?
This Week, we are finishing up the sermon series, Through The Eyes Of A Lion. It's been an impassioned few weeks from Pastor Nicholas Davis who brings us lesson #4, teaching us ...How To Run Towards The Roar.
A Message of Faith Book and Series Created by Levi Lesko In Loving memeory of Lenya "Lion" Lesko
1st part of 3-Part Series. How do we forgive the unforgivable? Jesus shows us how, as He has forgiven us. Rescources provided by Life.Church