Covenant Life Church

This week, we’re continuing to look at the specific steps that we must take to push through our soul pain toward the freedom that awaits us. We talked about the first step — Embrace the Pain — last week, and now, we’re going to talk about the second step: Reject the Shame. According to Matthew 26, Jesus said that His soul was “overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” but He knew that dying...

Who or what is driving your life? Is it fear? Pain? Revenge? Desperation? Rage? Addiction? Past abuse? Whatever or whomever is driving determines the course, the speed and the destination, and as we learned last week, if you are not submitting to the guidance of the Holy Spirit in your daily decisions, you need to stop and switch seats because at least one area of your life is out of control. We’v...

For the last several weeks, we have been going through a series called The Path to Freedom. We know that Jesus lived on the earth and died on the cross to set us free, but far too many of us — maybe all of us in at least one area — are still living in bondage. If we are ever going to experience the freedom that Jesus died to provide, we’re going to have to join Him on this path to freedom. Over th...

The ministry of Jesus is the same ministry of the Word of God, and that is to set people free from sin, from sickness, from soul wounds, from chains, from slavery — free from anything and everything that holds us down. Jesus literally died to set us free. Then, He gave us His Word as a resource to help us get free. Why are so many of us still walking around in chains? It’s time to get set free, an...

This week, we’re continuing to talk about the path to freedom, getting free from our bad habits and addictions, hurts and pain, chains and challenges. Anything that keeps you stuck in an action, attitude or feeling is an area where you need freedom, but how does that happen in a practical way? Christians in the American church often fall prey to the mindset of rugged individualism, but if we look...

Galatians 5:1 tells us that Jesus died to set us free, but it doesn’t just say that He did it; it tells us why He did it. He didn’t just save us because we were slaves to our sin. He did it because He wanted us to be free. In other words, He didn’t just set us free FROM something; He is setting us free TO something. The freedom that Jesus offers is the absolute best for us. When we get free from t...

Even though the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776, it was not until 1783 that all of the British soldiers were off American soil. This is because freedom isn’t simply declared; it’s won. The freedom that Jesus offers is manifested in our lives as we allow Him to change us. He unlocks the chains, but we have to step out of them. By studying the story of Israel following the exodus from...

Sometimes, when things are going well in our lives, we put God on the back burner. We believe that we have everything under control, and it’s not until we’re at the end of our rope and have nowhere else to go that we reach out to God. Even then, we try to make things better with our own power and effort. This week, Darron Reese uses an example from the Old Testament to illustrate how this way of l...

This week, Mitchell Cash, the leader of Covenant Life’s Men’s Ministry, shares his testimony. From wanting to be just like his dad when he was growing up to becoming a father himself, Mitchell opens up about the difficult road that he faced and the lessons that he learned on his way to becoming the man he is today. In this message, Mitchell talks about his decades-long struggle with alcohol, how h...

Over the past couple of weeks, we have learned that it is healthy to come to the conclusion that “I Can’t.” I can’t save myself. I can’t change myself. I can’t meet God’s expectations in my own power. However, by relying on the Lord’s strength and His great promises, we can share in His nature, putting off the old way of life and putting on Christ instead. Putting on Christ is like taking off old...

Like marriage, salvation is a covenant, and there is an exchange, a difference that must take place in the life of a follower of Jesus. We have to stop living the way we used to live and start living the way Jesus lived. We have to throw off our old nature and put on our new nature in Christ. You should be able to tell by watching someone whether they are a follower of Jesus because followers of C...

Philippians 4:13 and John 15:5 form the foundation of the life of a follower of Jesus, but too often, we don’t believe them, don’t understand them or simply don’t put them into practice. Our salvation is entirely and completely dependent upon the power of Christ and His sacrifice for us, and there is no sinner too far gone for the power of Christ’s love to pull them back and no sin too difficult a...

hear that verse and get stuck on the phrase “I can,” but those are not the two most important words in the verse. Instead, the most important words are “through Christ.” If we overlook those two words, we’re left to accomplish everything in our own power, but our human ability can only take us so far. The things of eternity cannot be accomplished by human effort. If we want to become like Jesus an...

We often see ourselves in light of our faults, failures, mistakes, hopes and dreams — the things we wish that we could change about or do with our lives. However, we can’t allow those things to define who we are. This week, we’ll discover how we can be free from that limited view of our identity and learn how we can allow God to define us. It’s not about our surroundings; it’s about our surrender....

In Acts 9:36-42, we read about the passing of a disciple named Tabitha, and although she was ultimately resurrected by Peter, the widows from her community showed up in mass. Instead of just sharing heartwarming stories about her, each brought something to remember her by, evidence of her impact on their lives. These ladies all stood there with robes and other clothes that Tabitha had made for the...

What’s most important during an infant’s formative years is that they learn the love of a parent. That is the things that gives them the ability, the confidence, the knowledge and the security to move forward in their lives. It’s gives them the ability to receive correction and strive for higher standards. They learn to trust the love of the parent. It’s the same with newly converted Christians. W...

Running is a word that is mentioned in some form or fashion more than 100 times in the Old Testament, and throughout the New Testament, including Hebrews 12:1-2, it serves as one of the primary metaphors to describe the Christian faith. If the Christian faith is an endurance race, what do we need to know and do to run it well, so we can say at the end of our lives — like Paul —that we’ve finished...

The longer that a person lives, the more he or she realizes that lots of things in life are complicated. Things seem so simple when you’re young. For the most part, life will be full of good things and, occasionally, bad things. You’ll have great relationships with wonderful people. You’ll learn to avoid the people who will bring you pain. You’ll be very careful about the decisions you make and th...

In Mark 12:18-27, Jesus is responding to a question from the Sadducees and say, “You have made a serious error.” Jesus was plainly pointing out an error in their belief system, and because He is clearly the expert in this situation, it’s important that we pay attention. Jesus’s rebuke was clear, true and brutally honest. He said, “Your mistake is that you don’t know the scriptures, and you don’t k...

Many who attend church on Easter may walk away wondering what difference the death of a teacher or prophet 2,000 years ago makes on their lives today, and if He did actually rise from the dead, they don’t see how that does anything for them now. To understand the impact of those events on our lives today, we need to realize what Jesus did in the weekend that we know as the first Easter was not a o...

Although "passion" originally came from the Latin lord for suffering, the word has evolved over many centuries. Now, the Oxford English Dictionary defines it as an intense desire or a strong and barely controllable emotion. In this week's message, called The Passions of the Christ, we will look at the events of Jesus' life that got Him fired up. From the Triumphal Entry on Palm Sunday to the hours...

Next week, Christian churches around the world will celebrate Palm Sunday, and look back on the week that led up to Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection. It began with the crowds of people lining the streets, waving palm branches, praising God and expecting Jesus to overthrow the Roman government and set up His earthly kingdom. Jesus knew that the crowd in Jerusalem - and even his own disciples - w...

In February, the House of Representatives passed a bill called the Equality Act, which seeks to extend protections of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to sexual orientation and gender identification. A similar bill passed the house last year; this version includes a provision that states there can be no exemption based on religious objection. In light of what this legislation could mean for churches arou...

As we near the one-year anniversary of the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Pastor John is helping us "press reset" and rediscover the mission of the church: to go and make disciples. By unpacking scripture and the words of Jesus following the resurrection, we'll be reminded of our purpose and learn how we can continue to be real, relational and reaching for the sake of God's kingdom.

This week, we’re ending our Marriage Series with a special message called “Unveiled” by Cindy and Raul Diaz. Together, they will explain how 2020 was a breakthrough year in their marriage and share with us the lessons that they learned along the way. As we’ll discover, we have to seek inner healing and allow Jesus to remove our veils — of fear, rejection, pain, depression and more — in order to se...