Living Stones Church, Red Deer, Alberta

John Series - John 3:16-21

John Series - John 3:1-15

John Series - John 2:12-15

John Series - John 2:1-11

For basketball fans, ‘March Madness’ is the tournament where the best teams in college basketball meet over a couple of weeks. The tournament begins with 64 teams endeavouring to win a national championship which takes talent, determination, and grit. It is so difficult to repeat. Yet between 1964-75, an eleven-year stretch, one team won that championship ten times, the UCLA Bruins. At that time,...

Sin shatters our sense of self-identity. What others do to us, what we do to others, and finally, what we do to ourselves distorts the image of God in our lives. Sin, followed by failure, loss, rejection and abandonment, causes us to wonder who we are and where God is in the equation. The exile shattered the nation of Israel. The questions that came to the surface in their minds were: Are we still...

One of the most quoted texts of Scripture is Proverbs 3:5: “ Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” Yet, we can struggle with this idea, especially when everything we see, hear and experience difficulties, pain, and loss; it seems God is telling us to trust Him in that season of darkness. Jeremiah had been prophesying God’s upcoming message of disaster upon...

We live in an age when many people do not want to be corrected or warned. In Proverbs 1, we hear the call of wisdom to turn to her ways. However, we see that the foolish mock and refuse to listen to God’s correction, resulting in calamity and distress. Repent at my rebuke! Then I will pour out my thoughts to you, I will make known to you my teachings. But since you refuse to listen when I call and...

What happens when God is talking but we are not listening? Maybe even more critically, what if God warns us of upcoming danger and judgment, but we ignore what is being said? One aspect of God’s loving nature is that He does warn us when we are deviating from the right path. The problem begins when our deviation is about to destroy us and others. What happens then? What does God do, and how is thi...

How do we see tragedy in our lives? How do we move forward when our world comes crashing down around us? As we are about to discover, God does have a plan for good even in our times of trouble and despair. Robert Davison relates this powerful insight about the things we may consider sacred but have lost the true meaning of what faith is all about. "Sometimes the things we regard as essential to ou...

W ho is influencing and shaping your life? Who are the people who are knowingly or unknowingly influencing you? Some of the most significant influences in our lives are family, friends, teachers, media, and people whom we respect and who we believe and trust. How do we know where we are headed unless we know the character and direction of those influencing us? We have been looking at the book of J...

Babylon, which continues its ascendancy under the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, subdues all of Syria and makes Judah its staging area to bring Egypt under his control. Jehoiakim is now under tribute and sends temple vessels as tribute to Babylon, and the young nobility of Judah, one of whom is Daniel, was taken into captivity in Babylon. Jehoiakim eventually rebels against Babylon, refusing to pay trib...

The New Covenant is a fulfillment of that promise. God would help us internalize and empower us to know Him and be able to obey His word. However, the context of the story of Judah’s imminent exile is that they disregarded God’s laws and embraced the idols of the people in the land. As most prophets proclaimed, the story of God’s people is a trail of broken promises, while God continued to be fait...

M any would say today that we are living in a godless age, but what that means in a very narrow sense is that we are not trusting the true and the living God. The reality is that we are living in an age filled with ‘gods’ or as the Scriptures call them, ‘idols.’ Idols are a substitute for God. The tragedy is that instead of carrying our burdens, idols need to be carried as a burden by the worshipp...

Colossians 4:3-6 We never know who is watching our lives and our actions' difference on others. David Robinson, former National Basketball great, shares some insightful thoughts about life's goals. "The goal of our lives is not our glory. ...trying to make life 'all about us' pushes happiness further out of reach. Our society is not wired for this kind of thinking. It's a me-centric world out ther...

Will we learn anything from those who have gone before us? We need to awaken and learn what happens when a culture embrace lies rather than truth as a value. In the biblical book of Jeremiah chapter 9, we discover what was transpiring just prior to the nation of Judah going into exile. It is the story of living a life of self-deception as a culture and rejecting values that reflect the heart of Go...

O ne of the great temptations in the Christian life is to know what to do and then ignore it. Hypocrisy is always a present danger. We’re not talking about never making mistakes or falling short. Hypocrisy is an attitude of false security and an indifference toward behaving ethically and morally. Hypocrisy is fostered when there is a sense of spiritual entitlement rather than a heart of gratitude...

O ne of God’s great expressions of mercy toward us is to address issues in our lives. We find this right from the very beginning in the story of Cain and Abel, in which Abel’s offering to God is accepted while Cain’s offering is rejected. The response of Cain is very enlightening and may give us a clue as to why God did not receive his offering with favour. Cain’s reaction was anger and moodiness....

We can rail against institutions, but what about in our own lives? As I explained last week, the real start of transformation is within our grasp as we address what is in our hearts. Think about the question that God raised to Jeremiah. Could one righteous person be found to spare the city? Unfortunately, at this moment in Israel’s history, Jerusalem was wholly given over to injustice and selfishn...

What God looks at, even beyond the terrible outcomes of our sins that we commit nationally and individually, is the condition of our hearts and minds. The need in every generation is a return to God. The conclusion of Jeremiah chapter three has been one of disillusionment. The nation of Israel and Judah had pursued their dreams, worshiped the gods or idols of the nations they found themselves in a...

O ne of the most important aspects of life is relationships. They are the most rewarding and challenging aspects of life. We become deeply invested in others, but when there is a breach in the relationship, particularly in our marriage relationship, the question comes to mind: Is it possible to start over again? Are there terms we need to consider before moving forward, and what are those ingredie...

When we read over the entirety of the Scriptures, we see that God instituted a number of covenants with humanity from Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David. Finally, we arrive at the New Covenant we are part of. We need to understand that each covenant was building upon the former, not so much a total replacement of the past, but rather a fulfillment of them, which ended with the work of Jesus Chr...

Jeremiah was called to warn the people of the hour that God was about to address their sins. God, in his grace, had reached out to people who refused to listen, but He was still speaking to them to draw them to Himself. Yet, knowing that they would ultimately harden their hearts, God also spoke words of encouragement because there would be a day after they experienced His discipline that they woul...

Y ears ago, on a trip to southern Saskatchewan, we travelled across the country looking at maps. For all the younger crowd, this was before GPS. Patty, my wife, pointed out that we had probably missed our connecting highway, but I was convinced that if we had, we were on a shortcut and would tie into another connecting route further south, saving us time and mileage as we were cutting cross-countr...