First Friday Fellowship

Our minds were not built to consume all the ugly that the world has to offer. If we are doomscrolling… If we're consuming mass junk from Reality-TV, bad stuff on the internet, all of the stuff is having an impact. Our minds cannot swim in a sea of poison, with no consequences to the thoughts and ultimately to our actions.  The average TV show or media feed is NOT BUILT to fuel our spirit of gr...

We hope for all the promises of God's Kingdom and eternity. And the manifestation of that faith is our confidence that this will happen for us, because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  It isn't enough to go to church every Sunday, to give everything you own to the church, or or to be a so-called good person every day of our lives, if we are not sure that we will be spending...

We all know what sin is. Simply, if it goes against God's Word, or God has convicted us in our hearts, or puts anything in our life before Him and His will for our life, then by definition, that's sin. We struggle, of course, with all kinds of sin, and being a Christian, for sure, doesn't put us above it or beyond it; In fact, sometimes the closer we get to God, the more sin tries to h...

The first time I saw  the Michelangelo painting, “The Creation of Adam,” I was struck by the hands. The hand of God, and the hand of Adam, are telling the whole story.  God is reaching, and stretching his fingers, and fully spread out, trying to connect with Adam. Adam is relaxed, passive, his wrist is hanging. His hand isn't reaching for anything.  This is the WHOLE PICTURE of our relationshi...

We are good at “Grace” in the modern Western world. Not necessarily the “Biblical Grace” that the Bible teaches. More like the, “I can do whatever I want and say sorry, and you have to forgive me” kind of grace. When God was made mortal, and the price of grace was HIS blood, and HIS pain and HIS suffering, our freedom was purchased, and it wasn’t purchased cheaply. If we as believers have genuine...

I read something recently on social media, “Believing in Jesus, but not doing what he says, is the same thing that Satan does.” How many of us know what idolatry is?  Idolatry, quite simply, is making a god in an image, and assuming power that it has that makes us comfortable; A god that cares about, what WE care about, and wants what WE want. A god that is in alignment with all our various procli...

God commands us to, “Go and make believers of all nations.”  God gave us the machine. He gave us the Holy Spirit. He gave us the horsepower. He gave us words, attitudes, and behaviors that can that can share His goodness to the world.  So, when we become Christian, when we accepted Christ as our Savior, and surrendered to His will, we were given the keys to that race car. We were given the keys to...

God only gave Adam and Eve ONE RULE… Don't eat from the Tree of Knowledge; and because we have this really predictable pattern in human nature… We SIN… We RUN AWAY.  So, when we mess up, don’t hide from it. Don’t avoid the consequences of it. Don't be like Adam and Eve and hide, because we're naked and ashamed. Let's RUN TO our merciful King, and come before his throne, in honesty...

Being a follower of Christ, especially in today's world, is not a place for a lukewarm commitment.  As a Christian, we are called to take up our cross, and follow Christ. This cannot be done , when we are concerned with pleasing everyone.  Be truthful, be authentic, and stand up for what you know to be true.

The closer that we draw to Christ, the closer that we draw to TRUTH, Satan ends up taking a much greater interest, and real world dangers RAMP UP. How do we deal with this?  The Bible says, to always be ready to make a defense for the joy that we have in Jesus. Be ready! Know your story! Be ready to share it! Tell people why! And then speak the truth in love, and in Jesus’ name; Because, there is...

Jesus is fully God, and He is also fully man.  So, what would’ve caused Jesus to stall the beginning of His ministry?  When turning water to wine, Jesus stated to His mother, “My time has not yet come.”  What do you think He means by this?  Additionally, how does Jesus turning “water into wine,” connect to the Garden of Gethsemane?  Could it be that, as human as Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsema...

Traditional roles have changed A LOT in our modern world, and in many households, these roles are reversed 180 degrees, and all variations in between.  But one thing is beginning to show up a little too frequently, and that is we are becoming a lonelier and lonelier population, while ironically, at the same time, engaging with thousand of faceless names throughout the known universe, through all o...

God wants to strengthen our faith, and reveal to us that we can trust Him. This would be impossible if we had no needs, no worries, no stress.  We're going to worry in this world about many things. And as the stress of this world hits, if we're wise, we'll humble ourselves before Him, and seek His hand for help.  God uses the stressors of this world, to reveal Himself to those who love...

We’ve ALL done bad things. When we do, HOW is it that we feel bad? Where does that feeling come from? What is it inside of us, that provides that direction? Most would say, that it’s CONSCIENCE. It’s probably a combination of how we were raised, the influences that helped form us, the series of morals and values that we were taught through school and society, our parents. It formed this framework,...

God tells us to be persistent in prayer. Sometimes it's going to look like the race is won. And sometimes it'll look like the race is completely lost. And in both cases, until the tape is broken, we don't know the outcome, so keep running! When you're winning, PRAY. When you're losing, PRAY! Run through the tape, and finish the race. If things are good for you, PRAY. If things...

We're living in a world where TRUTH is being watered down. Everywhere we look, lies are being redefined as truth, and simple truths that have always been understood to be true, are being called lies. The inputs that we receive are being controlled. But, we are called as believers, to be the salt of the earth.  What happens when salt becomes unsalted? It's worthless.  When the Christian bec...

Being Christian is not about being popular. It's not about how many people think you're a good person. And, we’re in a culture war. Satan is always on the prowl, looking for those that he will devour. He preys on our weakness. He attacks at our flanks, and where we're most vulnerable. So, what does it mean to be a man or woman of Christ? What does it look like when we believe that the...

When Moses was called, DIRECTLY by God, to lead His people out of Egypt, he resisted. The Lord was then going to kill the one HE JUST CHOSE to lead His people; We just went from a divine calling, to a divine condemnation, in a couple of chapters.  Moses was required to follow the law, and to his wife Zipporah's credit, it was identified and fixed.  TAKE GOD’S WORD SERIOUSLY, or someday all of...

The world is hard right now for MANY people. Their health struggles, and money struggles, and what appears to be a changing of all the stuff that we used to call “Normal.”  So, given that environment, what's a believer to do… Where should we focus? Well, we know we need to pray. We need to be in The Word. We need to teach whoever will listen. Also… Act justly, love mercy, forgive others and wa...

How do we pray?  Ministers across the world are asked this question quite often. We should humble ourselves, and repent. We have to CLAIM JESUS as our SAVIOR. And then you have to make sure when you're praying, the words coming out of your mouth ARE THE TRUTH! God is perfectly good. We should always make sure that our hearts line up  with HIS purpose; When we have surrendered to the saving gra...

I'm not so sure it's easy to wrap our minds around the fact that Jesus was fully God, AND fully human. Clearly, from the Bible, he experienced true human emotion. When Satan attempted to temp Jesus, Jesus chose God's Word, to tell Satan, “NO!”, and rebuffed Satan’s temptations. Do we see ourselves selling-out to meet an immediate, physical, severe, pressing need like, not eating for 40...

God can see through our motivations, and He will ultimately judge each and every action. Our job as brothers and sisters in Christ, is to speak the truth in love. We seem to be good at speaking the truth (as long as it is negative or critical), we might need a little help remembering the love part.

We need to take a moment and pray, and ask God if we are on the right side of Him. Because as we draw closer to Him, we begin to experience a purity and how we see things, our interpretation of events and how we see other people. Not that we see other people as perfect, but we start seeing them MORE as God sees them, and LESS as how Satan wants us to see them.  But, we should make no mistake, God...

The Bible tells us that we don't battle against flesh and blood, but the principalities of the spirit world.  But how should we handle the world we live in day to day, when the battlefield isn't isn't so obvious?  And for those that follow Jesus and claim him as their personal Savior, your future is completely secured. But it's still our job to work as scouts on this earthly battle...

700 years before the birth of Christ, the Book of Isaiah was written.  The Book of Isaiah is very popular among religious scholars, because it contains many of what we call “Messianic Prophecies” - Many, many promises of what the Messiah will look like, what He'll be like, and what to look for. Jewish scholars call these particular scriptures, “The Scriptures of the Suffering Servant.”  The wo...