Greater Life Church

We continue our look at what the church at its best looks like and what the priorities, and focus might be. Acts gives us a clear picture to illustrate those things. Last week we talked about unity and the value of that oneness. The book of Acts describes people who were full of the Holy Ghost. There are many churches full of things, but not the Holy Ghost. Many are full of themselves, full of pro...

Human love is something with which all of us can identify. We have all experienced it in some way. But divine love is different. Paul, writing to the church at Ephesus, was trying passionately to reach them about the love of God. The text appears to show that he struggled to find the right words to put some human definition to the love of God. He desperately tries to get them to comprehend this co...

The world may be at its worst right now. The prophecies in the bible are being played out before us in our time. Scripture paints a vivid picture of what the end days will be like. Many of the physical signs referenced in Matthew and Luke are being played out on the evening news. Wars, , nation rising against nation, natural and weather phenomenon and other signs are evident. Paul goes even furthe...

In life, most of us learn to never say never. Before children, many people say that they will never do things that the do indeed do after having children. If we declare that we will never do something in life, we can exclude a special opportunity from God. The events in Acts chapter nine changed the whole course of the church. For a man like Saul to experience such a change in his life was beyond...

We spend a lot of time talking about what we do not know. Bro. Hughes is more concerned about the things that we do know, that we are not doing. The bible defines this as a sin. There are five elements listed in our text that, if incorporated into our live, are the key to a successful spiritual life. Peter begins with verse 6 by saying that we must humble ourselves. Pride is one of the areas that...

The bible references children often. Faith like a child. Being like a child. There are things in life that are childlike and that are qualities that we cannot lose. Not childish, but childlike. The bible says to be like a child who believes that anything is possible and is full of wonder and imagination. Children see world in a much different way that we who have been knocked down by life a few ti...

The word of God has been referred to as a seed. There is great power in a seed. From something so small, great things are brought to be. This is only possible when the seed is put into the right environment. If a seed is placed on a shelf, it will never be anything but a seed. But if it is put in the ground and watered, it will sprout and begin to grow. It has to be put into action. In our text, G...

The issue that Jesus addresses in Matthew 18 that is of paramount importance. It is not something that is produced by the devil, but we produce it ourselves. If this happens in our lives, we will be bound. This issue is forgiveness. Jesus declares emphatically that this is a heaven or hell issue. When we do not forgive others who offend us, we place ourselves in a prison. If we do not leave offens...

On this Mother’s Day, we honor mothers and say thank you. Pastor’s message today is, perhaps a little different for a traditional mother’s day. Our world defines beauty in a away to drive sales and revenue. Women are pressured every day to achieve some standard that is attainable by only a few. To make matters worse, if too many people begin to achieve the definition of beautiful, they change the...

The Christian life is a life of contradictions. It is a life filled with paradoxes that are hard to understand. For instance, the way to gain is to give. We are called to life, but we face death. We are called to joy, but we live with tears and brokenness. We are called to peace, but we live with conflict. The question is how do we respond to these paradoxes? If we are not careful, everyday can be...

In our text Elisha had an encounter with the prophet Elijah. It affected him so profoundly, that he knew that he had to make a connection and try to experience more of what he had felt. The bible describes how Elisha sold out to follow Elijah. Not only did he offer the oxen as a sacrifice, he burned the plow that was his means of making a living. He did not want there to be any reason for him to g...

God desires greatness for our lives. He wants us to discover His greatness and not only that, to discover our own greatness. Too often people live way below the potential for their lives. Life is restricted by many things; most often by things we are placing on ourselves. We may have a vision or an idea about something, but we place artificial limits on ourselves that keep us from realizing the gr...

The words “It is finished” was a declaration of victory. He didn’t quit or give up, He finished. We should want it to be said of us that we are a finisher, not someone who is finished. We must all learn to live through and beyond IT. We will all experience IT in our lives. Trials, troubles, hardships and storms: We will all experience IT. What is your IT? What is IT that frustrates, angers, or con...

Our text is a description of a healing that Jesus did on the sabbath. It is one of seven such healings depicted in scripture. As in most of these healings, we do not know the name of the person receiving the miracle. We are introduced to this man simply as the man with the withered hand. This anaomity perhaps indicates to us that the person described could have been any one of us. We do not know h...

It is far too easy to get used to living with disfunction. We become accustomed to the stain in the carpet or the leaky faucet. We have a way of filtering things out. It is said that people who live near the train tracks, do not hear the sound of the train going by. We are geared to becoming desensitised to things. Spiritually we can experience the same thing. We can become so used to things being...

Bro and Sis Hughes have just returned from a trip to eastern Europe. They saw many of beautiful basilicas, abbeys and cathedrals. Europe was once the birthplace of the renaissance and a return to Christianity. Now, sadly, very few people attend service and mass. There is a lot of talk of history and Christianity and buildings, but these many beautiful buildings that dot the landscape are now but t...

Pearl Fryar http://www.pearlfryar.com/ was born in Clinton, North Carolina, to a sharecropper family. He worked as an engineer at a can factory in Bishopville, South Carolina until his retirement in 2006. Around 1988, he began trimming the evergreen plants around his yard into unusual shapes. In addition to the boxwood and yew found there originally, he began transplanting holly, fir, loblolly pin...

Attitude is a settled way of thinking. Often when we say the word attitude, we attach a negative connotation. Attitude is not always a bad thing. It is simply a way of thinking or feeling. We express our attitude through what we do and how we react to things. There is a huge correlation between attitude and success. It is often very difficult to change our attitude. Note that the definition of att...

Our text talks about righteousness. If we read closely, we see that righteousness is expressed with our mouth. God spoke the world into existence and then spoke to divide day from night. We are made in God’s image, so what we speak begins to define our life. When we speak negatively, we will see negatively in our life. Proverbs 18:21 tells us that the power of life and death is in the tongue. The...

In the movies, we see the actors performing their roles. At the end of the film, we see many more names in the credits. The list of people behind the scenes that make the whole production possible is many more than the few actors that we see in the spotlight. The actors get the accolades and the praise, but without the sound men, the electricians, the costumers and all the grips and set builders,...

Out text tonight was spoken in the upper room on the day of Pentecost. Peter was overcome by the Holy Spirit and preached this simple message after having sinned and denying even knowing Christ. Despite that, by living the very words he was speaking, God enabled Peter to launch a ministry of teaching that would change the world.. It is a simple set of instructions on how to change a life. This is...

These few short verses are the keys to understanding God’s purpose on the earth. Jesus’ words that day released a promise that exists even now. He declared that He was not there by accident, but was commissioned to be there. It was no accident that He was in the synagogue that day and no accident that he read from the prophecy of Isaiah. He declared that day that the Gospel that He had been sent t...

Last Sunday we discussed the Resurrection Effect. The result of Jesus’ life, ministry, death and resurrection has had a profound effect on the world. The question this week, is what are we doing with the gift that has been given to us? Are we living a life that takes full advantage of the gift of salvation that God has given us? Do we recognize it in our lives? Are we taking hold of the present op...

Last week we learned several things from the life of our savior about how to live under pressure. None of us live a life without some pressure. Most of it unwanted and some of it unwarranted, but nonetheless, we will all experience it. The pressure we experience is part of building our character. Jesus’ life, especially at the end, was fraught with pressure. He showed us how to live when things ha...

The butterfly effect is a mathematical weather theory that can be best described as a small change can have a huge effect. In the entire history of the world, the life of Jesus was comparatively small. But the effect of his life, death and resurrection cannot be measured. There is no event that has so profoundly changed the world as the resurrection. The entire course of mankind has been changed b...