Hope Christian Fellowship

Whoever said that God never gives you more than you can handle has clearly never read the Bible before. God’s story is full of situations where his people are faced with overwhelming odds, and if we are honest, our lives mirror that pattern. Whatever challenge or calling God has placed in your life it is all too easy to feel unprepared and unqualified. We can compare ourselves to others or look at...

Most of us know the pain of following someone that proved to be untrustworthy. Humans struggle with power because it seems to always grab the part of us that is self-centered and ready to use whatever power we have for our own purposes. Whether you agreed to follow that person or not, the feeling of injustice is unbearable. Those in power can take our money, our freedoms, and bring unwanted change...

When a child is born, there is a sense of all the possibilities that their life can hold. All of their days lay before them unwritten and full of potential. Many know this feeling from their own experience even though they would struggle to put it into words that fully express it. Can you imagine how much harder it is to put into words what it would mean for God Himself to come to earth as a baby?...

When we are little, we struggle with the fear of noises in the dark and the monsters we imagine. Almost always, the thing that calms the fears of children is the presence of a parent. We grow up and we grow past our childish fears. But life still brings us plenty of reason to worry, stress, and fear. What we thought was a reason to be afraid as a kid gives way to the real-life experiences of betra...

Did you ever have big dreams for your life? I know I have!! While we make so many plans for our family, career, and wealth, we often end up in situations that we didn’t plan for or never saw coming. Do we allow our faith to look past our challenges and still pursue the Lord? In this text, we see Jesus in a tough place facing tough decisions.  No better time than now to look to the example of Jesus...

The last holy habit we’re going to look at is the practice of giving. There are plenty of ways to give away what has been given to you, but we are going to focus on the Biblical teaching about money. It is ironic that the vast majority of Americans have more than almost anyone else in the history of the world, but we all feel like we need a little bit more to be OK. Perhaps you can feel the trap o...

People generally do not see serving as an upgrade to their lives. If anything, it carries a feel of being made lower than others. But Jesus said that He came to serve. If serving is a bad thing, why did Jesus choose to do it? The truth is that serving is central as a habit for those who are disciples of Jesus. If we are following Him, then we serve. It truly is that simple. In order for serving to...

Those who follow Jesus worship Him. What does that mean? The Bible talks often about a physical response to Jesus like bowing down and worshipping or singing songs of praise to Him. Ultimately, it means living a life that brings glory to Him, testifying by our decisions and choices that He is right about what is good and that He is worthy of following and of our devotion. Too many believers think...

There was a time before everyone had a smart phone with a map app that it was possible to get lost. You would have some directions in hand, but eventually, you would find yourself unable to figure out where you were and how exactly to get back on track. Truly it is easier to stay on the path than to get back on it once you’re off. One of the holy habits of disciples is to become regular readers of...

Some people think the world is divided into leaders and followers. But the truth is that many people don’t realize that they are already leading. They may be leading in an unhealthy or dysfunctional way, but they are having an influence over those who are following them. Most people are both followers AND leaders. We submit ourselves to those in charge in some areas, and we find ourselves setting...

Sometimes, there are too many choices. Have you ever been paralyzed by an array of options because there are just too many of the choices that you like? Or maybe your health journey has suffered because you have too many options to choose from for eating and exercising, so you wind up never really committing to anything. Being a disciple requires certain holy habits that you choose and to which yo...

Are you tired? Exhausted? Do you regularly feel like you don’t know if you can keep up the pace at which you are living? All of us live in a very hurried world. It is hard to imagine a life that is characterized by peace and rest. This makes the invitation of Jesus to come and find rest for our souls seem wonderful and out of reach all at the same time. We think of rest as stopping from all our ac...

From the very beginning, God’s people have prayed. There are many different approaches that have been taken. Some beg for mercy over and over while others barely do it at all. Some repeat the same prayers endlessly and others find a way to bring every single event to the Lord throughout their day. One of the big challenges for people is knowing HOW to pray. Or at least that’s often the thing that...

As we continue looking at Holy Habits, there is one that we have been emphasizing for well over a year. Isolation and loneliness are our enemies. Whether you feel alone or not, our calling is to make sure no one who is a part of Hope is vulnerable to being disconnected from our church family. Paul uses a picture of a body to teach us how we are supposed to function together. We cannot follow Jesus...

Following Jesus is not a light or easy thing. It is quite simple, but it is completely against our human way of living. We always think of ourselves as being in the center of the story. But when we follow Jesus, the story isn’t about us anymore. Instead, we are living for things that last forever. This allows us to follow Jesus into a life of faith that may look a little crazy or ridiculous to oth...

As we begin our series, we look at one thing that is an inescapable outcome of receiving Jesus. Those who are saved want others to have it too. We don’t lose anything by giving away the Good News. In fact, we are explicitly following Jesus who came to “call sinners to repentance.” It is normal to think about Christians being “good people” and non-Christians as people who are sinful. But Jesus make...

It can certainly feel challenging to love like Jesus amidst a highly polarized and emotionally charged atmosphere. However, as followers of Christ, we are called to find our voice and engage with the world in a way that reflects His character. In this passage, Jesus calls His followers to a radical kind of love – one that goes far beyond natural human instincts. As we go through the text together,...

(Hebrews 11:1-13, 32-40; 12:1-2) Faith is a mysterious thing. There’s an element of belief in it, but also trusting in things that never happen, and seeking to know things that can’t be known. If we look back at the giants of faith in the Bible, as the author of Hebrews does in chapter 11, we can see that their lives reveal a faith that goes far beyond belief—a faith that calls to action, to sacri...

Have you had someone in your life as a friend who was actually a bad influence on you? Maybe they were the reason you made choices that you still regret. Or maybe they just offered some moments of fun that turned into a distraction from the life you actually wanted. We see the impact of friendships in our own lives and in the lives of those we love. On the flip side, some relationships are grounde...

We are working our way through the Gospel of Luke. These stories are about the life and work of Jesus. Luke took time to interview eyewitnesses and to investigate times and locations so that he would have an accurate record of what Jesus said and did. In this story, we find a very interesting interaction between Jesus and a man that no one would be even allowed to touch by the Law of Moses. It wou...

If you know someone who loves to fish, you realize how much it takes to be successful at fishing. Some days, it seems like “the fish are biting” and others days it seems like all the fish have vanished. Jesus’ calls some disciples – including the three in His inner circle – from this career. And He uses that imagery to describe what He wants to ask them to do. Instead of fishing for fish, He wants...

When you or someone you love is sick, you ache for them to be healed. If it is an infant who cannot sleep because of a cold, you wish you could make them feel better immediately. If it is something like cancer, you pray that God will heal and that the doctors will be able to remove it all. Our bodies are quite fragile and we are significantly powerless to determine our own well-being. So, we pray...

Sometimes life can make you think that a dark cloud hangs over you. Nothing seems to go right, and you get bad news on top of bad news. This kind of pattern often causes people to think that someone is out to get them – maybe even dark spiritual forces. As Christians, we should know about the spiritual enemies that we face. In Jesus’ ministry, He often demonstrated His power to set people free fro...

The end of World War 2 was good news for the world. After all the battles and the lives lost, there would be an end to the fighting. No matter which side a person was on, this had to be good news in that respect. However, it is documented that one Japanese soldier kept fighting until 1974. He simply did not believe that the war was over. For almost 3 decades, he spent his life fighting a war that...

If you’ve ever started a diet, you know that there are so many messages about food – especially food you shouldn’t eat – that saturate your daily life. You are helpfully reminded that the local fast food restaurant has a sale on their quick lunches. The donut stand near your workplace is always ready to serve. And the evening munchies sneak up on you every night. Temptation is a battle that we kno...