Greater Life Church

Carlos was a Spanish monk who lived most of his life outside of his native country working for the church. While traveling the countryside, he noticed a strange silence and he recognized something that was not right. He became aware of something moving back and forth that he came to recognize as a snake ready to strike at a bird. The bird was unable to move as he was captured in the gaze of the sn...

There are times in life when the tide is in. All in life is going well and all looks bright and fair. Other times, the tide is out. Life looks bleak and impossible. How often we work so hard to fix a problem to no avail. There are forces that we cannot overcome in our selves. There are times in life that the harder we try, the more pain we inflict on ourselves. There is nothing we can do in those...

Our text is a Psalm that was written as an instruction. As with many of the great Psalms, it begins with a conclusion: Truly, God is good to Israel. The writer then goes on to describe how he came to that conclusion. He describes how the circumstances in life had affected his mind and how that led him to doubt what he had been taught. He looked at his own life and found a contradiction that wicked...

The story of Jacob is one of the most fascinating and interesting of all the characters in the bible. Jacob was the younger of two brothers. He tricked his brother into selling his birthright. Then later he and his mother tricked his father into passing the blessing to him in place of his brother. WHen all this was found out, Jacob had to flee for his life. It is at this point that our scripture t...

A recipe is a set of instructions for preparing food. Part of the recipe is a list of ingredients. It is important to follow the recipe if we intend to wind up with a dish that resembles the one in the picture. We buy books or search the internet for collections of recipes to try new things. Some recipes are more special. These family recipes are shared from generation to generation. These traditi...

No one likes to lose. We don’t like losing games, our hair, or our marbles. But most of us have lived long enough to understand the phrase “You win some and you lose some.” One of the most frustrating things about losing is giving all that we have, but still losing. Sometimes we lose because we did not try hard enough, but when we have given our all, but still come up short, we find it hard to tak...

In the game of Monopoly, there is a Get out of Jail Free card. That phrase has become part of our cultural lexicon. It is something that will get us out of a difficult circumstance. A jail is designed to limit freedom and to control the person who is in jail. None of us want to be in a place where those restrictions and limitations are placed on us. There are prisons that are not physical. There a...

It is increasingly difficult in today’s word to be a good man. In the eyes of many in our culture, manhood is in a tailspin. Technology that replaces labor, the feminist movement and other social trends has produced a steady decline of the view of true manhood. The media and our culture engage in a subtle undermining of reputation of men. Manhood is under attack. Being a true man in our world is a...

When God gave Israel the plan for the tabernacle, it was very precise and exact. It was to be a place where God and man could connect. Every area of the tabernacle is a sermon that speaks a powerful message. Each area of the tabernacle was designed for a specific purpose to provide a interaction with God. The first thing encountered in when entering the tabernacle was the alter. It was an impressi...

In our text, God has called Abram out of the land of Ir into what we know as the promised land. The journey was around 600 miles that they undertook on foot. Abram stepped out on no more than a promise from God. When he arrived in Bethel, Abram built an alter. Sometime after arriving in the promised land, a famine came on the land. This famine seemed to send a panic into Abram’s life, and in his w...

Our world moves very fast. People are in such a hurry and are busy from day to night. Technology that was supposed to make our lives simpler and connect us with people has had the opposite effect. We used to think of the Christmas season as busy and bustling, but it seems that everyday is like that now. Our lives are overflowing with a busy schedule. We are so busy, that we cannot remember what we...

God created every man with a divine purpose. Unfortunately there are factors that interfere with God’s plan for people. Most often these factors are people. People sometimes get in the way of what God wants to do. God created a beautiful paradise. In the book of Genesis, He looked down and said “It is good.” When He created man, He looked down and said “This is very good.” How ironic that the very...

A truth of life is that If you don’t use it, you will lose it. We all took algebra in school, but few of us can still work those problems if we do not use them frequently. Life is ever a learning process. As important as is learning, it is just as important that we retain that knowledge. As we go through trials, it is important that now only do we learn something from them. God does not waste oppo...

Everyone at some time or another forgets something. We are not alone in forgetting things. Recent research shows that there 42% of people forget faces. 49% forget what was said. 53% forget words. 57% forget phone numbers, 60% forget where something is, 83% forget names and 38% forget what they did. We all have a problem remembering things. Forgetfulness can be very costly and dangerous. Our nation...

We want God to work out things lin our life, but often that working out involves trials and storms. Our humanity does not like this. It is easy to ask “If God loves me, why doe He allow this to happen?” Our natural reaction to trials and problems is to groan and wish that it were not so. It is not easy for us to look at such trials and problems as a gift from God, but our text makes it plain that...

Life for many people is frustrating. They expend a lot of effort trying to achieve results or work toward a goal, and seemingly all that effort yields no results. We strive and search for things and live the best that we can but often, despite all our efforts, we do not attain the joy, happiness and peace that we desire. Our text offers a key to dealing with these futile feelings. Paul leads with...

Young children are given coloring sheets with pictures to be colored. The instructions are usually to stay within the lines. In the younger years, we give children projects with guides and limits. As they grow, they are given assignments with less restrictions. Sometimes we give children blank pieces of paper and allow them the freedom to create and let their minds flow. We want people to grow and...

Of all the influences in life, there is perhaps no one greater than the influence of a mother. Good or bad, the power of the potential of a mother’s influence cannot be understated. The things that Thomas Edison invented revolutionized our life and have lasting effects even today. As a boy, the school masters thought him to be unteachable. His mother knew better. She had words with the masters and...

Burkina Faso is a french speaking country of 17 million people in West Africa. It is about half the size of Texas. In this densly packed country, there are 13 UPCI churches. Zack and Jen Sportsman are missionaries appointed to this work. Tonight, Bro. and Sis. Sportsman bring us details about their work in Burkina Faso as well as a timely message about listening to the whisper of God born of his o...

Tonight, Bro. Hughes continues his series on The Keys. Keys can unlock things or they can secure things for safekeeping. If we have the key not only do we have the power to open something, we have the authority. If we have a key to a house or building, we have the authority to enter. When we have the key, we belong. As children of God, we have the key to the spiritual freedom and liberty we need....

The work key comes from the Hebrew word that means opener. It is something that gives access. The power of the key is to open and to close. God gives us the ability to open things in our life for blessing and to close off those things that are not beneficial to our lives. Another definition of key is something that provide a revelation and understanding of a complex situation. When we hold the key...

A common marketing technique is to announce that a product is New and Improved by simply changing the packaging. We like new and improved. Bro. Hughes reads from our text and finds things that can make us new and improved. The things found do not involve a new diet or a self help book. There are bold statements in our text. It says if we do these things, we will never fail. That if we do these thi...

We do not celebrate Easter as a past event. We are not mourning the dead, we are celebrating a living God. He is Risen! Beginning with the people in our text and continuing throughout history, many have tried, but they cannot eliminate the truth of Easter: The tomb is empty. Resurrection morning was the day that God drew a line between the beginning and the end. The world that was known ended that...

Our text tonight contains some of the last words of Jesus. The most striking here is the phrase: “It is finished.” There are many sermons that could come from this declaration. It signaled the end of His earthly ministry. They also could refer to his very life. In the closing hours of His life, Jesus showed us how to overcome and to win the victory in whatever we are going through. He did not simp...

Our text is from the last week of the earthly walk of Jesus. It was the time of passover. We have come to know this date as Palm Sunday and was Jesus’ triumphant entry to Jerusalem. For three and a half years, life floated along in the world of the disciples, but this week would be a fast forward. In the span of seven days, everything that they had based their life and following on, would change....