Chestnut Mountain Church

When we talk about prayer, prayer can sometimes be very misunderstood and seem very intimidating and it sometimes seems pointless to us. Prayer is a conversation between you and the Father. Looking to Jesus’ life on earth, we see that prayer was His lifeline and He was persistent about praying to God during His ministry. We must be persistent in prayer. Even when it seems like God is not doing wha...

If you are genuinely going to pursue the Lord and experience a closeness with Him, it is imperative that you do it by being in the Word of God. In addition to fasting and praying, we must focus on God’s Word. In Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, we see how God’s Word came to them, worked in them, and worked through them. Upon salvation, we have to continue to examine God’s Word, continue to be i...

It’s a new year, and with a new year comes new goals, new resolutions, and new commitments. As we enter 2025, has it crossed your mind to pursue God like you never have before? In 2025, we are praying that you and we, as a church, pursue God and see God move in a way that we never have before. Just as Jesus teaches in Matthew 7, if we want to see God and pursue God like never before, we have to co...

As we enter the end of 2024, we have all of these expectations of what a new year will bring. Maybe there are new habits or new resolutions you want to start in 2025. What if we challenged ourselves to truly see Jesus in 2025? you to see Jesus in 2025. When we see Jesus, everything changes. As we behold (see or observe) King Jesus, it will produce a reaction in us. To do this, we must first rememb...

One of the biggest parts of how we celebrate Christmas is through gifts. While we can recall some of our favorite gifts we have received throughout our lives, the greatest gift is the birth of our Savior. The greatest gift ever is defined by the Savior, Messiah, and Lord. Looking at the announcement of the birth of Jesus from the angel to the shepherds, we see God choosing society’s most unlikely...

Looking at the Christmas story from the lens of Joseph, we see the forgiveness, obedience, and trust that he displayed from discovering that Mary was with child to hearing from the angel that the child was from God and He would be called Jesus. Before knowing that the child was from God, Joseph was ready to forgive Mary and to set her free to withhold her from public shame and penalty because of w...

Mary was a young lady, and she was engaged to be married. In this season of Mary’s life, there was so much anticipation. Then, out of nowhere, a messenger from God shows up and absolutely turns her plans upside down. As the angel delivered the message from God that Mary would carry and deliver Jesus, the relationship between God’s promises and your obedience is seen. At the time of her being deepl...

When the people of Judah were in their darkest valley, overwhelmed by their own failures and external attacks, God sent a message of hope through the prophet Micah: Help is on the way. This promise would be fulfilled through the birth of Jesus. While Micah delivered this message of hope to hurting people, they would have to wait for the coming of this Shepherd, but God continued to walk with them...

While we think about all the things that we have to be thankful for, there’s nothing that should surpass the thankfulness of the life, the death, and the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. As we’re coming up on a busy season in our lives with holidays, traveling, etc., it’s so easy to get distracted. We must remember, though, that Jesus has to stay central to anything and everythin...

God is faithful. Since the beginning of time, God has remained faithful to His promises and in His pursuit of us. Even though we may have questions, doubts, and frustrations about our lives, God is faithful. Through how He took on the promise and the curse of the covenant to reconcile His people back to Him, we see how God is faithful to His promises, and He is faithful to His promises through Jes...

Lighting is important. In photography, for example, lighting can be the difference between a breathtaking photo and a terrible one. In the context of a human being, a life is only as beautiful as the light that illuminates it. In the Sermon on the Mount, in addition to Jesus calling believers to be the salt of the earth, He also commands believers to light their shine in the world. As followers of...

We face choices and opinions where we are forced to pick sides. Often, these choices lead to clear division and separation. Similarly, there would be a dividing line in the room, a clear separation; before we place our faith in Jesus, there is a clear dividing line between us and God. God sent His only Son to provide a way for that gap to be closed so that we would be unified in Him, in Him alone....

Jesus is patient. We think that God loves us when we are doing well and that He is disappointed when we fail. However, God loves us enormously on our best days and loves us the same on our worst days. He is patient with us. He displays His patience towards us through being a patient physician and patient shepherd. Looking at how Jesus healed people, how He led people, and who He said He was throug...

Jesus always led and loved with generosity. As an imitator of Christ, because Christ is generous, we are to be generous too. Looking to Jesus’ teaching in the parable of the Good Samaritan, we see how being generous involves putting others’ agendas before our own, having compassion that leads to action, and being open-handed with what God has given us. We are generous because He was first generous...

As followers of Christ, we are called to be authentic imitators of Him, not just in words but through our actions. Everything Jesus commands us to do, He has modeled it. Through this, we see, that He is authentic by how He loved, served, forgave, and was just real. How much different would our church, our homes, and our workplaces look if we were authentic through our love, service, forgiveness, a...

On Jesus’ way to Jerusalem, as He approached what He knew would be the crucifixion, He had to Jericho. Through His journey to Jericho, he encountered Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector hated among the people, in a sycamore tree. Despite being hated, being in a hard-to-see place amidst the crowd, and Zacchaeus not really knowing Jesus but curious enough to catch a glimpse of Him, Jesus called Zacchae...

When you think of kindness, you think of someone being nice to you or pleasant, gentle, patient, offering a helpful gesture. However, kindness is not just about being positive, helpful, and gentle, but it’s also acting on what someone needs. The kindness of God is one of the most fascinating and mind blowing qualities of God, that he, who is Yahweh, is kind. Looking to accounts of people being hea...

Looking at the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4, we see how He is and still is intentional. Despite being despised by Jews and Samaritans, Jesus was still intentional in His interaction with the woman and provided true satisfaction to her thirst through a relationship with Him. This intentionality even compelled her to tell others, causing more to believe in Je...

We are called to be imitators of Christ, and it’s a responsibility of being a follower of Christ. Upon salvation, God not only calls you a child of God and calls you redeemed, but He also calls you an ambassador for Him. As an ambassador for Christ, we are given the message and ministry of reconciliation. Carrying this message and living out this ministry is the goal; how we accomplish this goal i...

We never know what we’re going to face every day. We will face unexpected, unwanted, and uncomfortable pain and circumstances in life. When it seems like life is falling apart, God is working on the brokenness. Looking at the parable of the hidden treasure in Matthew 13, Jesus teaches that unexpected blessings are often found in unexpected events. God will never waste the unexpected, but are we wi...

God has a plan for you in His family and in His mission. While He has proven His power through speaking everything into creation, making a way for His people, and wiping out evil in the great flood, He chose to expand His Kingdom differently through His people, including you. Looking to Jesus sharing the parable of the mustard seed and the leaven, be reminded that you are a seed in the hand of an...

In Luke 6, Jesus is speaking to His disciples and a crowd of people, and He shares the parable of the house built on the rock versus the house built on the sand. In His message, Jesus shares that the man with the house on the rock stood firm when the storm came, while the house on the sand was destroyed by the storm. Looking at this message shared to believers by Jesus, we see the importance of ap...

When we belong to God, our salvation represents a brick in the Kingdom of God. It is our responsibility to go and gather more bricks to place in the Kingdom of God. What does it look like practically to build the Kingdom of God? Look to the children of Israel in the book of Ezra, whom God freed to build His temple; we see how we must keep building His Kingdom, even in the face of the enemy’s disru...

While the heart of the church is always going to be that we want people to belong to God and belong here, we have to have the same burning passion to want you to become a mature disciple of Christ. We want you to belong to Him, we want you to belong here, and we want you to mature and become a mature disciple of Jesus Christ. Why is it so important? We’re doing exactly what Jesus commanded us to d...

Our mission here is to saturate the world by making disciples. We have three strategies, which are how we are going to accomplish saturating the world by making disciples, and these three strategies are belong, become, and build. We desire for people to belong to God and to belong to the family of God. The word belong embodies the heart of God. Looking back to Adam and Eve and how God desired for...