Grace for New Life

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.

This week special guest speaker Rae-Anna Hedlin shares about the mission work that she is doing, along with others, in Japan. She also encourages us to live in God’s grace and follow in His ways, for His ways are always best for us.

Your life is far more precious than you know. God created, redeemed and equipped you to join in His Mission of renewing and restoring all things. Failing to understand that can lead to us ruining our lives. But knowing who you are in Jesus will help you to engage more fully with God’s mission and live the fullness of life that He has for you.

Emptiness is the lack of meaning or purpose we experience when we fail to accomplish our dreams. By spending time reading the Bible, we can see that Jesus is always with us and at work around and through us to bring us hope in the midst of our emptiness.

When we are compassionate and conscientious and placed in an environment that is stressful and frustrating, we are at risk of experiencing burnout. But Jesus invites us to retreat with him, reset in his love, repent of the lies that are leading us into burnout and reset our lives according to his love and truth. Then we will experience more fruitful and joyful lives.

Everyone has a blind spot, things about themselves which they cannot see, and often pride is in our blind spot. Pride is toxic because it will destroy the things we care about and harden our hearts against God. Jesus invites us to open our eyes and see the damage our pride is causing, and then bring the burden of that awareness to him. Forgiven by Jesus, we cultivate a heart of humility and enjoy...

When we are younger, we tend to keep up with the pace of change. But eventually, we set down roots in our personal preferences and let change pass us by. But we become irrelevant, we cannot share the infinite treasure of life with God with others. Resting in God’s love and learning from him and others will help us to share the gift we have been given with others.

With rapid changes in technology & our fast pace of life, we easily become disconnected from the people around us. Confession helps us to get real with God and ourselves and that can help us to become people of integrity who build rich, full and satisfying relationships with others.

When the temptation to compromise hooks into one of our heart’s desires, we can find ourselves doing things that are destructive to ourselves and others. But the Good News is that God’s love for us is infinite and unconditional and Jesus came into this world to save us from ourselves and for a rich, full, abundant life with him.

Sometimes when we get hurt, we choose to stop trusting, hoping and believing and become cynical. But cynical hardens our heart against the people around us who love us most and against God. Our world is messed up but with Jesus there is always hope.

We can think of ourselves as a kind, gracious person, but the grace that we extend toward others usually has limits or conditions or is reciprocal. But Jesus’ love covers a multitude of sins and he has grace for all people. There is no barrier to grace on Jesus’ side of the relationship equation, only on ours. Sometimes we need to get desperate before we receive it. In that posture of humble recep...

Human life tends to be a self-centred enterprise. But God calls us into community, which we need and which forces us to become more selfless. As we remain in Jesus and his love, he saves us and fills us with his love so that we have no need to try to save ourselves. We can love selflessly and together with other selflessly-loving followers of Jesus, we can be an irresistible community.

Sometimes we equate happiness with joy. But joy is a much greater and different thing. When our joy is centred in the Lord, we will find that it will make a huge difference in our lives, from the inside out, for faith chases away darkness.

The early Christian Church was an Irresistible Community, but today’s Church has become very resistible. By making ourselves vulnerable to Jesus and letting Him challenge & re-orientate our values, He will help us to be people that help others to experience Jesus’ unconditional love.