Dr. Jim Richards

Everyone wants to be treated fairly, but we want to define fairness based on our own personal perspective. We feel like victims, but never go back and look at how we got where we are. We choose to blame others Instead of taking personal responsibility for our problems. The justice we need in our world today doesn’t come from any type of legislation but from the hearts of people who love righteousn...

God’s justice is far more than a code of laws and consequences. God’s justice has the inherent power to transform the believer into a fair, merciful person. God doesn’t merely give us a standard; He gives us the power to live in that standard. We will never understand what it means to have a fair and just society, city, state, country, or workplace until we understand what God says about it. Once...

Most people define original sin as Adam and Eve disobeying God in the Garden by eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Original sin was not just them eating from the tree. Original sin was that they ate from the tree for a particular purpose - because they believed a lie. They believed God wasn’t good, that they weren’t created in His likeness and His image. They believed the only...

In our world today, most everything is based on rumor rather than fact. The Bible speaks very strongly against liars, and people who exaggerate and spread rumors. It clearly shows us the destruction this type of communication causes. Once a rumor is accepted as truth and begins to pass through the population, the rumor does more damage than the activity that is actually taking place. The news medi...

A lot of people want to know what’s going on in America and the world. Is this the end? Is Jesus coming back? People don’t know who or what to trust. We are distracted through fear and trepidation. We are living in a time the Bible calls “the beginning of sorrows.” Times are bad, no doubt. But no matter what is going on around us or how bad it is, we can connect with God and experience strength, p...

The cry of the world today is that there is injustice. Everything is unfair and slanted toward the white or the wealthy, this group or that group. The people setting buildings on fire, stealing, robbing, and killing other people all say they’re seeking justice. The problem is in how you define justice. One of the primary characteristics God conveys about Himself in Scripture is justice. He is just...

One of the most important aspects of God’s character is Justice. Eight of the Ten Commandments were about treating one another with love, respect, and value. When Israel entered Canaan, the Ten Commandments were expanded into a code of justice, based on the love of God. God’s system of justice was revolutionary. It provided protection and rights for women, slaves, servants, and immigrants. It abol...

All it takes to completely change your life is a heart awakening and in an instant, everything in your world can be transformed. One glimpse of healing can forever change your health. A single inspiration can lift you out of poverty or lack. When your heart awakens, it will transform you into what it sees. You can use the Word of God to show your heart a completely new reality, the one God promise...

I want to help you get past your failures! Sadly, we tend to define ourselves by our past mistakes. The greatest success stories in the world came from people who simply used their failures as stepping stones to success: Albert Einstein, Babe Ruth, Henry Ford, and Thomas Edison, just to name a few. If we were to put as much effort into learning from our failures as we do making excuses for them, w...

We are not who we think we are! In early childhood we began to act like our influences dictated. We buried our true identity beneath the behavior our family required. Sadly, we came to believe we were our behavior. But that’s not the real you. That is what the Bible calls the old man: the man you think you are outside of Jesus! But the Bible tells us we can put on the hidden man of the heart. Join...

Of all the factors that can consistently affect our lives negatively, there is probably nothing more devastating than what the Bible calls a “broken” heart. Because the heart is the seat of who we are, it affects every aspect of life. It is the source of all abiding emotions, good or bad. From the heart emerges all of life’s boundaries. In other words, every sense of limitation we experience flows...

The Bible says that the end will come “like a thief in the night”. But it also says it will come with the “sound of a trumpet”. This is either talking about two separate events or there is an interesting caveat that we need to recognize. The truth is; people that won’t know when the end is here either don’t want to know, don’t believe, ignore the signs, or are so overtaken by the lust of their fle...

Throughout history, we see Godless people, Godless regimes, world leaders hungry for power, and greedy people attempting to take over all the resources available in Planet Earth. Each monumental war has gotten more violent, more wicked, and more brutal. Jesus said that the time would come when we would have a tribulation on Planet Earth that would be far worse than anything that has ever happened....

So many people have asked me if this is the end of time. If you’re asking that question, you don’t really understand what the Bible means when it talks about “the end.” In Matthew 24, when Jesus talks about the many things happening and says, “This is not the end”; He is talking about reaching the end or completion of the goal (the reason all these things are happening), not the end of time. These...

When Jesus returns, it will not be to bring an end to the world but to prevent the antichrist and evildoers from destroying the world and mankind. Until He returns, there are ways we can manage ourselves so that we can be over-comers no matter what’s going on around us. Part of this is knowing how to read the signs and being aware of what’s going on in our country, our city, our state, and even in...

Anyone can look around and see what is happening in the world today. But God wants us to see what’s happening and properly understand “the times.” Unless we understand the times, i.e. "why" these things are happening, we can never properly understand what actions to take. Observing an event is like standing on a boat and looking at the surface of the water. Seeing the surface doesn't reveal what i...

The simplest and clearest representation of Jesus becoming our sin, freeing us from the wrath of God, and at the same time making us the righteousness of God, fully accepted as a sweet-smelling savor, is the Old Testament sacrifice using the two goats of salvation. Of all the Biblical models that will help you grasp what you have in Jesus, this will be the clearest!

Historically, we have been influenced by religious thinkers to believe that sacrifices were made to appease God, move God, or compel Him to do something. That is not at all what sacrifices to God are about. Sacrifices were designed to benefit and influence our hearts and draw us closer to God, not to earn something from Him. Under the New Covenant, our sacrifice has already been made in Jesus (the...

We can only have faith in God to the degree that we believe He is Who He says He is. When we trust and follow Him, we are confident He will bring us to the ultimate in life (Jn 10:10). This is where we activate the blood of Jesus in our hearts and lives. Faith in the blood is to deliberately remind ourselves and reflect on the price Jesus paid through His shed blood, which cleanses our conscience...

Through the new birth, all that God has is ours. We can’t get what has already been given through works (Eph 1:18, begging, or force (Matt 11:12). The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus obtained and secured it for us, thereby ensuring it is always active and available. Our only qualification is to be in Him (Col. 1:12), and our ability to share in that inheritance comes from being one with H...

The contractual agreement God made with Jesus is called the Covenant of Peace. By its very name, we can understand the foundation and boundaries by which God chooses to relate to us and what His intention is for us. Yet, nearly the entire world believes God is angry at them, so they try to appease Him through pious living, works-righteousness, and using faith as a tool to manipulate Him. The Good...

Everything God has revealed about Himself can only be understood through Jesus’ life, teaching, death, burial, and resurrection. Learning to apply this revelation knowledge to our lives is preceded first by experiencing it in our hearts. God revealed His Son to the apostle Paul first, as he meditated on Old Testament Scriptures about the Messiah (Gal. 1:16-17). After Paul brought this to life in h...

Since everything in life stems from what happens in our hearts, the beliefs we form about God ultimately determine the sum total of our life experience. God's covenant with Jesus is a covenant of the heart—upheld by His Name and His Word, establishing what we can expect from Him. Until we’re fully persuaded by who He is and what He’s said, we’ll struggle to make the covenant work. But the real str...

Have you ever considered how you formed your beliefs about God? How did you come to believe what you do? While we may be truly passionate to serve Him, many believers don’t know who God really is. In ancient times, a name revealed the character and identity of a person. This is why God put such emphasis on all of His names. In His first introduction to Moses, He said, “I AM WHO I AM,” indicating t...

God is a Covenant Keeping God… what does that mean for you? In business transactions, contracts are created so there are no misunderstandings: everyone knows their terms and benefits. In a simple contract you are never left to guess at what you are getting; and you never have to presume what is required of you. A covenant is a contract. God is a covenant keeping God. Why? He wants it to be clear w...