Freedom Fellowship Church

Defining the Gospel sounds like it would be a no-brainer. It's often trickier than we expect it to be, though. We tend to equate "The Gospel" with "Salvation." While salvation is certainly part of the Gospel, it's not the sole aspect. Christ's coming, death, and resurrection brought so much more to the story, that is yet to be finished by the way, than we realize...

You may have heard "church" terms like "reconciliation" and "atonement," but what do they actually mean? Why are they important? They're actually essential to our faith and for a very good and very exciting reason. When we talk about "being invited to God's table," it's important to understand not only what that means, but what it cost for tha...

When something is built to a basic level of function, you might be tempted to think it's good enough. After all, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Unfortunately that mindset can carry over into our spiritual lives as well which, in turn, affects our day-to-day living. It's true that when furniture is built well and functioning as it should, it has a certain amount of value. The...

It's no coincidence that Jesus spent time with people around a table. He also used the table as imagery in His parables. In addition to all that, the people with whom Jesus ate was a constant source of contention amongst the religious community. Needless to say, sharing a table is something of significant importance to God. It also becomes a point of concern amongst ourselves as well. It soun...

The Bible is very clear. God gave us gifts, and He gave them to us to be used. It all starts by finding out what your gifts are. After that, it's important to talk about the intended context in which your gifts were designed to be used. Outside of that context, our gifts are weak, at best, or useless at worst.

Everyone has something to give. It doesn't matter if you think you've been given a lot or a little. The question is: what are you doing with it? The story Jesus told of three servants should echo loudly in our hearts. Each servant was given an amount of money. Two of the servants did something with that money and earned a return. The third buried it, and the master was NOT happy about it...

Why is our purpose a topic we talk about? Why is it even in the Bible? Perhaps it's because we all wrestle with the question, "Why on Earth am I here," or because God wants to bring us back to His original design, or it's some combination of everything. Whatever the reason, the Bible has a lot to say about our divine purpose. That's all well and good, but the process of di...

As we talk more about God's purpose for our lives, we can't ignore His divine process. It typically involves two things: molding and anointing. We usually love the anointing part. That part is exciting. The molding, however, is the less fun part.  Like a piece of wood that needs to bend, it needs to be heated up in a dark, cramped space before it can be shaped into its intended design. O...

When you hear the term "the glory of God," it's easy to default to the big, showy types of displays. You might think of miracles and healings, or you might think about the times that God's presence manifested itself in the Old Testament, such as pillars of fire, whirlwinds, earthquakes, floods, etc. Moses was someone who had seen all of those things. Despite that, he still aske...

The best stories contain conflict and resolution. Without conflict, the resolution doesn't hold any emotional weight. When we identify with the characters and their struggles throughout their journey, however, the resolution is richly celebrated. It's the same with the Bible. What may seem like a collection of separate stories is, actually, one continuous story with a thread running thro...

Hope is universal to human existence. We all hope for things, whether it be a positive outcome to a situation or business deal, a shift in our finances, a promotion in a career, a spouse, a family member, or any other number of things. What sets biblical hope apart from optimism, however, is that biblical hope is based on a person, not circumstances. When we base our hope on a situation, it's...

Jesus came to save us. That's first and foremost. He came to set us free and restore our broken relationship with God the Father. In this way, Jesus was reestablishing God's Kingdom on Earth. That was just the beginning, though. Before He ascended, He told the disciples to wait for the Holy Spirit to empower them to be His witnesses. What we read about in the following pages are all the...

Jesus did and said many things that went right over people's heads. Despite their best efforts, they just didn't get it. They completely missed the bigger picture Jesus was trying to get them to see. Hindsight may be 20/20 as they say, but the truth is that we often miss the same things. We try to solve problems with human solutions. We are averse to our need for a savior. We try to forc...

Jesus was with the disciples for three years. He died and rose again. He breathed on them the breath of life, which was the Holy Spirit. Even after that, Jesus told them to wait for something more, a gift from the Father. It would be so good that it was better for them that Jesus left. Otherwise, the Holy Spirit would not come. There has been perhaps little else in all church history, however, tha...

Jonah is most well known for being swallowed by a fish and, well, "deposited" back onto dry land. His story is much more than that, however. It's a picture of God's consistent character throughout history despite man's brokenness and flaws. It's a story of God's mercy coming to a people who did not deserve it. These people were enemies of God, much like the Bible...

It's easy to think that if we do enough "good deeds," go to church, say the right things, or just in general "be a good person," we'll get into heaven. We find in Scripture, however, that's just not the case. Jesus had a conversation with one of the leading religious leaders of his day. This teacher knew all the right information and had done all the right things...

 It seems so fundamental. It's the cornerstone of the Christian faith. Dig a little deeper, though, and you will find a spectrum of conscious or subconscious beliefs about what it means to be saved. Is salvation transactional? In other words, do I do enough good deeds to be saved? Is it intellectual? Do I know the right things to be saved? Or is it, perhaps, something else entirely? What if t...

The first church in the book of Acts was something spectacular to read about. The people of that day felt the same. The Bible describes everyone as being "in awe" of the church. We feel this way so much so today that we want to "go back" to that model if it were possible. So what is it that is so attractive about that first-century church? It wasn't just the product that c...

Helping people in need can be easier said than done. Whether we're engrossed in our own little world with its to-do lists, or we don't want to be inconvenienced, or if we get overwhelmed by our lack of plausible solutions, it's easy to become anxious about reaching out to help the needy. Peter and John certainly weren't well-to-do enough to solve the world's problems. They...

Loving everyone sounds nice. It makes great bumper stickers and t-shirt slogans, but it isn't always that easy. The challenge of loving people doesn't make it any less true or necessary, but it's often easier said than done. If we're honest, loving people is hard. It costs us something. We may have to give up our comforts, our time, our energy, or our resources. It's what...

It's one thing to feel sorry for the circumstances of others. It's another thing to be so moved by love that you'll do something about it. That's what it means to have compassion for someone or a group. It's the characteristic of God that compelled Him to have mercy on His people. We often find it difficult to have compassion for others, however. Perhaps we just don't...

Why? It's a question that we all ask at some point in our lives, especially during our early childhood years. It's this desire to understand the world around us or to understand ourselves. As Christians, we struggle and wrestle with the part of us that is new in Christ and the part of us that is still "fleshly," that is desiring sin and rebellion towards the things of God. Paul...

Today, it can be discomforting to be a foreigner in another country as we can easily be sidetracked by the discomforts, withdraw and become ineffective in those foreign places. How we approach our time in those kinds of places matter. We are living in a difficult time and place and in a divided country. Our challenges today are growing. How we approach them and respond is important and challenging...

Peter became known as one of the most significant of Jesus' disciples. The start of his journey, however, was a little, pun intended, rocky. He was called by Jesus but returned to fishing. He respected Jesus. He obeyed Jesus. But he had not yet submitted himself wholly to Jesus. Jesus was not yet Lord to him. It wasn't until the miraculous haul of fish that Peter recognized Who exactly J...

Too often we treat prayer as a means to maintain our Christian life without fully grasping what it is meant to be. We can miss the significance of prayer. Only when we give prayer its rightful place of the highest part of the work that has been entrusted to us that we will see that there is nothing so needed and so important as prayer.