Adventurous Living - The Meadow Springs Community Church Podcast

Bow in worship to a false and lifeless statue? No thanks...not even if my life depended on it. 

Rigidity keeps us from seeing Jesus as the living, breathing Word of God and reduces the passion of life-giving relationships into a performance of life-killing rituals.

Which is the easier for Jesus: to heal a temporary body or forgive an eternal soul? For the paralytic man, to provide him with health or provide him with Heaven?

What's it like to feel clean, and whole and close to someone? That is the real 'come to Jesus' moment!

During the month of August, MSCC will feature several different guest speakers that will address racial tension in our country and the Church. This message is just the beginning of our journey.

It's very difficult to keep doing a hard thing... day after day, month after month. Fighting temptation and the desire to give up. It'd be so much easier to turn around and go a different direction.

Only a very thin facade needs to be pulled away from human decency before the ugly stuff is visible. 

Sometimes the sound of our words gets drowned out by the volume of our actions. Want to point your kids to Jesus?  Give 'em a little SHOW & TELL.

Jesus' first spoken words in the book of Mark caused a stirring among the people. What was all the fuss about? The gospel had been launched and it was time for them to make a choice about His kingdom.

The baptism and the temptation of Jesus connect back to the Old Testament plans and promises of God - He would send His Spirit to live in us and dwell among us; to walk beside us in our own wilderness experiences. Will we trust Him with everything? 

Our relationship with our earthly mothers (or fathers) is imperfect at best and disastrous at its worst. Why? Because we are all broken and sinful. It is only with God that we can find a perfect and unbreakable attachment that surpasses anything here on earth.

It had been 400 years without a word from God. Then a guy shows up, having come from the desert, wearing a strange coat and long hair, wild and untamed, proclaiming the arrival of a King. This was some kind of announcement for sure, but were the people ready to hear it?

Jesus reminded His disciples before His departure into heaven to affirm and reflect on their faith in Him; trust and be confident of His love for them and be filled with hope , for He would return for them. Friends, this period of separation is only for a time and what a glorious day it will be when we unite, face to face, again.  

Our bodies always tell us when we're hungry. If yours is like most families, there's some debate about what everyone is hungry for. It's the classic ritual of trying to pick a place to eat away from home.  Our souls are also hungry and we can feel it...but what are we hungry for? Our hunger may feel vague and a bit hard to describe but God understood our hunger perfectly and sent His Son Jesus so...

So this is the question: If our salvation cost Jesus his own life blood and abandonment by His Father, what more could we pay? If He proclaims, "It is finished," what more could we do?

If anger or lust is on the menu, it is always for a party of one. They only work to separate and draw us away from the relationships God has placed in our lives.

All sin is deadly if it goes unchecked and the sinner unrepentant. Don't let apathy for your neighbor or consumption of the wrong nourishment prevent you from growing in your relationship with the Lord. 

Let's face it - sin is playing the long game. It exists to alienate us from one another and separate us from God. Envy and greed  make us ask the questions, "Why them? How come I didn't get that?" We frequent the the local 'Stuff Mart' for things to fill the space where God needs to reside. Be someone who knows what it is to desire the things of God, not the things of this world.

When the curtain comes down, the lights fade and the applause we craved dies away, there will be nothing left and the theater of our life will be empty. There's a reason its called 'vain' glory. In life, we get what we go after. 

Your life, though designed to be lived with a purpose given to you by God, is really just the title page at the beginning of a great book.

Love is an earthquake that changes the way we see ourselves and the way we see others. How delighted we can feel and how strong we can be is revealed when we hear ourselves addressed in love by one who truly loves us.

Leonard Cohen's song, "Hallelujah"   moves us deeply as it focuses on the reality of broken relationships. But it doesn't give up on them; it is a broken hallelujah , but it is still hallelujah . Praise the Lord for the relationships we can experience and for the hope we have in Jesus Christ.

Why would God include the Song of Songs in the Scriptures if it did not express an essential message for us today?

Known. Formed. Created with and for a purpose. Chosen. Loved. You are a child of God, that's who you are.

Even for a champion of the faith like David, very few words were recorded in scripture upon his death. David had fulfilled God's purpose and plan for him in his own generation and then he died. What is God's purpose and plan for you? Could you write it down? Articulate it at all? At MSCC, we will strive to make 2020 the year  we live life 'on purpose'.