Willfully living in known sin, accepting false doctrine and loving worldly things undermined the faith of these six men. If you want to sustain your own vibrant faith in Jesus you will need to avoid these three things at all costs.

If you read the New Testament and it looks nothing like your Christian experience, maybe you're involved in Evangelical syncretism.

Did you know that before the church in Antioch was buzzing with mission activity, it was a hub for prophetic activity?  In fact, most of the prophetic activity in the book of Acts takes place in or around Antioch. Before Antioch had missionaries, it had prophets.

One of the distinctly unique opportunities to apply the Sermon on the Mount is in the use of social media. It's been said that "Facebook is not the real world!", and while I agree with the sentiment, our behavior on social media does have real world repercussions.

If your life is built around comfort you will not have clarity, passion or glory.

In order to blame God for suffering, you must first acknowledge that God exists. Therefore, you cannot blame God and remain an atheist. Atheists must blame mankind for human suffering.

Putting off following Christ could be compared to putting off getting in shape.  The purpose of getting fit is not so that you can look good at your funeral or fit in your coffin.  The purpose of getting in shape is to improve the quality of your life NOW.  The same is true with following Christ.  The purpose of salvation is not simply to save you from a Christ-less eternity in conscious torment, but also to improve the quality of your life NOW.  

Demons have limits! They aren't all-powerful, so they organize. They aren't all-present, so they spread out. They aren't all-knowing, so they must hear in order to submit.

When a person decides to follow Jesus, their circle of influence is likely to follow.

When reading the book of Proverbs it's important that we begin be identifying ourselves as a person in need of greater wisdom. Some people may be haughty enough to identify themselves with the wise. Others might identify with the foolish, although this might be self-deprecating, as a foolish person may not be found reading the book of Proverbs at all. I think an honest appraisal of our approach would be that we should read the book of Proverbs as a student.

When Jesus was eight days old a man named Simeon prophesied that Jesus' destiny was, in part, to "reveal the thoughts of many hearts".  Jesus spent a huge portion of his ministry exposing and then challenging people's false ideas about God.

When we become aware of fragments of racial superiority in our hearts, the Biblical response is repentance. As God brings to mind biases, prejudices and fears, repent of those attitudes and cooperate with the renewing of your mind.

A meek person may still have ambition, vision, zeal, passion and goals, but a meek person is not willing to step over or crush others in pursuit of those things.

In my opinion, anyone that is intellectually honest has to give a fair inspection into the man Jesus. Regardless of religious affiliation, Jesus is the most influential man in the history of the world. Jesus is a historical figure that we all must come to our own conclusions on.

Beginning your faith journey based on emotion and circumstance does not invalidate your faith journey, but it also doesn't sustain it. Over time my faith began to develop and deepen. Eventually my belief in Jesus influenced my emotions but was ultimately founded upon external, objective, historical evidence and was supported by personal experience. 

America has yet to really see the results of a Biblically literate church.

Check back for more info on this upcoming series!

The Ten Commandments were the seminal word from God about a new culture that He was establishing among a people that were newly freed from 400 years of slavery. Instead of looking at the Ten Commandments simply as a list of rules to keep, it might be helpful to look at them as a list of cultural values.

This is my experience as a Pastor leading a congregation to embrace a new vision for the future.