Grace for New Life

Because of our uncomfortableness with death, we tend to deny or solve it. But our human efforts to deal with death only burden & bind us. God has solved our death problem by sending Jesus to undo what has been done and repair the damage done by death. Therefore, we rest in Jesus as a new person headed towards Resurrection Life.

There are times when the challenges of life overwhelm us and we feel like dry, life-less bones with no hope. But our God is a God who can breathe the Holy Spirit into us and bring the dead back to life. Therefore, we have hope.

Sometimes we find ourselves in situations that overwhelm and disorientate us. It can feel like we are strangers in a strange land. But God's people have been in situations like this before. God encouragement to us is to keep listening to Him for He has a good plan for our lives with a hope-filled future.

All of us have situations in life when we are filled with fear & fear can prevent us from doing the right thing. But faith in the God who saves will help us to have the courage we need to move forward in the face of fear.

All of us have a reservoir of shame that surfaces when it gets pricked. But God invites us to identify our emotions & use them to discover our own shame story & evaluate our beliefs & assumptions. God’s grace & love gives us the courage & truth we need to replace false beliefs & assumptions with truth, and then live a new story with a new ending.

Our society has changed so rapidly over the past few decades that it seems like our old ways of navigating human sexuality issues no longer work. But in the past in times like these, Christians were able to be a great blessing to the world around them as they rested in Jesus’ love & let Him live His life through them. Jesus will help us to be faithful in a changed world.

Jesus' appearance to his followers in the Upper Room after his resurrections how Jesus is able to come into our life and replace our fear and anxiety with his perfect peace. When Jesus steps into the room, he changes everything. Presented by Dr. Jim Gimbel, President of Concordia Lutheran Seminary, Edmonton AB.

The pain we suffer when others sin against us means it is hard for us to forgive them, especially when forgiving them means we agree to pay the cost of their forgiveness. But it is easier for us to forgive others when we realize the worth of what God has already forgiven us.

The topic of human sexuality can be a messy one to wade through. But we need to delve into this topic and see what God says on this matter so that we can live out our personal sexuality with integrity and faithfulness.

Sometimes it is hard for us to go to God and pray. As Jesus teaches about prayer, he tells us that because of our heavenly Father’s perfection, graciousness and goodness, we can pray dependently, shamelessly and expectantly.

We think ourselves to be wise. But Jesus knows that we need a major renovation in our heart so that we have a character, love and goals that aligns with His and, with His help, enables us to proceed through life thoughtfully and with wisdom so that we are able to make a difference now that will last forever. Jesus is ready and willing to begin that renovation.

We think that we know ourselves accurately, but we often read ourselves wrong. In the Story of the Great Banquet, Jesus shows us humility will help us to read ourselves accurately and see the mercy and generosity that God has for us.

Sometimes it is hard for us to understand why bad things happen in this world. In the story of the Wheat and the Weeds, Jesus not only explains why this is so, He also shows us how we can part of making a greater eternal difference for good in the world.

Bring your sunscreen. We’re going to the Holy Land! Craig Broyles will share a selection of slides from TWU’s study tour of Israel, Egypt, and Jordan. We’ll see the real places where events of the Bible happened, get a taste of everyday life in biblical times, and seek out where God made a difference in people’s lives.

It is easy for us to look at the lack of positive results in our life or in the world and get discouraged. But Jesus teaches us that the Kingdom of Heaven has come to us. Though it starts out small and its growth is hidden, it will have an amazing positive impact in the end. So, we keep our eyes on Jesus and live with confident hope.

Some of us think of God as being angry with us, so we need to serve and please Him in order to please Him. In today's message, our guest speaker, Daniel Olson, encourages us to think of God as a God who meets our needs and then, relating to God in that way, share with others how God can meet their needs.

By nature, we are enslaved in using our lives, relationships & resources in ways for which they were not designed by God, so our lives need to be put under new management. Jesus came to give us life in the Kingdom of Heaven as a free gift. It costs us the privilege of ruling over our own lives, but when we see the true worth of life with Jesus as our king, it is a trade that we readily make.

We could be the most gifted, knowledgeable, faithful, sacrificial person around, but if we don’t have love, it all amounts to nothing. It is through a Life With God that we experience what love is really like.

We live in a world where chaos can erupt from surprising sources and change our lives forever. But the Good News is that Jesus came into this world to bring us a hope that is stronger than the chaos around us and in us.

Human beings frequently use religion to try to gain control as a response to their fears. A religious posture like this is actually faith in ourselves and our abilities. But Life With God points to a different kind of faith where we let go of faith in ourselves and trust in God’s skill and faithfulness to give us a safe landing in the end.

This Sunday some of our young people confirmed that the Christian faith into which they were baptized is indeed their faith. Included in this podcast is a sample of the personal testimonies of faith that they shared that day.

In an effort to deal with our fears by trying to gain control, humans often resort to religious postures of relating to God where our activity is the basis for us trying to get what we want from God. But God invites us to relate with based on relationship, and as we treasure, unite with and experience communion with God, we will experience the rich and satisfying life that Jesus came to give to us...

Our values are very important because they guide our decision-making. We often have values that lead us away from life with Jesus, but God pursues us with His love and transforms our values. As life with God becomes our greatest value, God gives us opportunities to share the gift of life with God with others.

Part of God’s plan for renewing all things is for His People to live lives that attract others to God. But this can only happen when we rest in God’s love and embrace the fullness of the Good News of what He has done for us through God the Son, Jesus Christ.

Sometimes we experience public rejection and humiliation in our personal social space, and the results can be devastating. Through His death and resurrection, Jesus experienced ultimate rejection so He could be the Cornerstone of our unconditional acceptance. Accepted and forgiven, we serve as God's royal priests who share His love with a broken and hurting world.