The more fruit that is evident in your life, the more you start to look like and remind people of Jesus. This is not only evidence of maturity, but it positions your gift to have greater impact. While it is great to develop and exercise your gifts, make sure you are developing fruit along with it because that is the real test of your maturity.

When you think of idolatry, we often think of worshipping idols. However, idolatry can also be when you exalt people to places they do not belong or when you place your loyalty to the person ahead of loyalty to God. Here are two instances of this from the New Testament.

Jesus didn’t preach to win the affection of the crowd, he preached and taught to win their hearts. He wasn’t after their applause, he was after their devotion. That’s why the size of the crowd is not indicative of what is in the people’s hearts. How then does this tie into the marks of a healthy church? If a church is going to be healthy and effective there are three marks that must be evident.

According to Jesus, if you are a follower of Christ, the world is going to hate you. I can understand this especially if you profess to be a Christian. However, I want to pose a question to you that may seem a little odd at first. Are they hating you for the right reason? Is it because of the gospel, or is it because of you?

Have you ever felt like God is asking you to do something and you don’t have any idea how it will get done? You are not the first person this has ever happened to. In fact, this is exactly what happened to the disciples. They were faced with a challenge that in every direction screamed “this can’t be done.”

I am referring to the feeding of the five thousand. What do you do when you think that what you have to offer is simply not enough to accomplish what God wants you to do? This is the question this story addresses. Let’s look at some truths so you can know that what you have is enough. Let’s look at this story in four parts.

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Divorce is a  real and prevalent issue both inside and outside the church. When it comes to the topic of divorce, this can be a little bit like The Scarlet Letter. If you are not familiar with the story, a woman who had committed adultery was forced to walk around with a scarlet letter A sewn into her clothes. This identified to everyone the sin she had committed.

When it comes to divorce, sometimes in Christian circles it gets treated the same way. There are several reasons why people get divorced: adultery, abuse, finances, or simply falling out of love. But the question that many wonder is this: is divorce a sin? Obviously, divorce is not something that God wants or pleases Him, but is it actually a sin? Divorce is a complicated and controversial issue, yet it cannot be ignored. 

What makes something, such as divorce, sinful?

The nature of this topic should require us to approach it with a lot of grace. For people not facing these challenging situations it could be very easy to come to the conclusion that divorce is a sin. The short answer is yes, Paul and Jesus both spoke of factors that can allow divorce to be justified and not sinful. However, t truth of the matter is that whether divorce is a sin is a little more complicated than that.

As I write this, I am writing from a perspective of a child whose parents went through a divorce, so I have seen firsthand how devastating and damaging this can be. My intention today is to not bring down the heavy hand, which is easy to do, but to bring the hand of grace, which is not always easy to do. Whether the actual act of divorce is a sin, every divorce is a product of sin. If there was no sin in the marriage relationship, divorce would not be needed. Surely Jesus knows our weaknesses and understands our needs. Let's take a look at what the Bible teaches us as grounds for divorce and reconciliation. 

John 1:1 in my opinion is the most important verse in the entire gospel of John. When you understand what John 1:1 means you will see that it shapes the lens by which you must look at Jesus throughout the rest of the book. One of the most important truths about who Jesus is and the character and nature of God appear in these few words.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1).

This one verse establishes the Word as being both divine and eternal in nature. Everything you read after this must be filtered through this reality that the Word was God. Take every action, every miracle, every teaching, and everything Jesus does and view it with this truth and you will understand why John 1:1 means so much.

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His love towards you will not change. There has never been nor will there ever be any thought or temptation that will come into God’s mind to stop loving you. This verse is a reminder that his immovable love will never cease.

Often, when we think of Jesus one of the images that come to mind is the lamb. After all, when John the Baptist was about to baptize Jesus, he declared him the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. When you think of a lamb you think of tenderness, gentleness, and I would add even submissiveness.

While Jesus was all these things, there is another description of Jesus in Scripture that is the complete opposite of him as a lamb. That description is the Lion of Judah. I think we understand the importance of knowing Jesus as the lamb. I want to give you four reasons to know Jesus as the Lion of Judah.

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The fact that you are a masterpiece is what I call an only-God reality. Only God has the ability to taken broken, sinful people like us and turn them into something beautiful. But that is exactly what he does and it is his specialty.

There is much speculation as to who the 24 elders in Revelation are. As you can see, they are seated on thrones, dressed in white robes, wearing crowns. Whoever these elders are, one of the things you notice is that they are constantly entering into worship.

Outside of religion and politics, few issues cause such division as that of vaccinations. But no matter where you stand, how should Christians respond to this issue? Does the Bible support, or deny vaccines? And what should we know about the decision to vaccinate?

When you look at the story of Jesus healing a man with leprosy, after the man asks Jesus to heal him, Jesus did not heal him first. The first thing he did was reached out his hand and touched the man. Please don’t overlook that. Jesus did something that nobody else would dare do. Touch a sinner, maybe. Touch a leper, never. Yet Jesus touched him.