Living Stones Church, Red Deer, Alberta

Hebrews 12:3-13

John Series, John 8:1-11 Nobody likes to be disciplined. When it is done right, it brings about a healthy outcome. Disciplining your children is one of the most difficult challenges of being a parent. Everything is great when kids obey, but if they say or do something that needs to be addressed, then it causes tension. Discipline often creates pressure on the relationship. That is one reason why p...

John 7: 37-52, John Series Survival experts talk about the rule of three. You can live without air for about 3 minutes, without water for three days, and without food for about three weeks. There are exceptions, but that is generally the limits of human existence. Interestingly, Jesus describes the relationship with God in terms we can understand. In Jesus’ wilderness experience under significant...

John Series John 7:14-36 One of the most challenging things is shattering people’s biases and prejudices. People today speak of tolerance and openness regarding ideas, values, and lifestyles. Still, the reality is that our world is filled with self-righteousness, intolerance, and blindness in relationship to what is healthy, virtuous, and loving. This can be true both in a religious and a non-reli...

John Series, John 7:1-13 It is a painful experience to have someone you love accuse you of something you are not guilty of, and the truth is the opposite. To be misunderstood is difficult to swallow, especially when you don’t see it coming. It is even more painful when it comes from people you love. John is now about to change the geographical location of Jesus’ ministry from Galilee to Judea, eve...

John Series, John 6:22-71 What is the main objective or priority in our life? Where are we expending our energy and giving our time? What we consider the most important is what we desire and pursue. What we are chasing often does not allow us to experience the most out of life. What we are about to discover is what enriches and empowers our lives determines what we will get out of life. So, how do...

John Series, John 6:1-15 HOW TO EXPERIENCE A NEW DIMENSION OF LIVING What brings true fulfilment in life? Once the basic needs of life are met, then what? For many, it is simply acquiring more things, experiences, adventures, and novelties. Some people are looking to discover something new as the old becomes boring. There is a restlessness in the human experience, and it can be only filled with so...

Ezekiel 20:7-9 In our broken world, painful things happen to people. What is tragic is the aftermath. How to handle those painful emotions. How do you handle hurt, frustration, infatuation, and anger, to name a few emotions? One thing we forget is that God not only created us with emotions, He has them. How does God handle His emotions, and what can we learn from Him? How does God handle His disap...

Cognitive dissonance is the mental stress people experience when exposed to information that conflicts with their beliefs, values, ideals, and actions. There are two responses to cognitive dissonance. You dig in and continue in your current way of thinking and acting by dismissing and fighting the evidence mounting against your position, or the simplest way to address it is to change your beliefs...

The background to this discourse between Jesus and the religious leaders is the man's healing at the pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath day. Since Jesus commanded the man to 'pick up his mat and walk,' the religious leaders became antagonistic toward Jesus because, in their minds, he was violating their oral tradition. They had thirty-nine regulations regarding how to keep the Sabbath day holy. The p...

New Years Eve

While works do not save us, God has a plan for us all. We have the great gift and opportunity to live our lives within His divine plan. Whether in the grind of day-to-day living or the dramatic, significant changes that highly impact our lives, we have a compass to guide us. Jesus was to be involved in it all, and He has given us His Holy Spirit to help us. The compass is available, but we must en...

In John 5, we find an amazing incident in the ministry of Jesus where we discover a picture that reveals the true and underlying condition of the nation and why religious people rejected him. When we develop a distorted view of who God is, we have a difficult time receiving what God wants to do and bring into our lives. In John’s telling of a paralyzed man, we discover someone who had given into d...

EMBRACING MOMENTS THAT WILL TRANSFORM YOUR LIFE There is nothing like life-and-death situations that cause us to rethink life. A crisis is one of the most fundamental means that helps us realize that we are weak and needy. Ultimately, it can bring us to faith in Christ, leading to lasting transformation in our lives. Randy Alcorn points out in his book, ‘If God is Good,’ death draws our attention...

John 4:1-42 What may be shocking to some is the people that Jesus connected with and those he did not, as reflected in the first four books of the New Testament. Jesus reached out and cared for people struggling with sin issues in their lives. Jesus said that even the prostitutes were coming into the kingdom of God ahead of the moral people because they were responding to the message of repentance...

The greatest joy and satisfaction in life can only be found in knowing God and knowing we have a God-given purpose. That purpose comes as we walk with Jesus. Doing that frees us from so much strife, stress, anxiety, disappointment, and discontentment. What causes people to strive and labour in life? What is the compelling motivation that fuels so many people’s lives? Apart from God in our lives sh...

Hebrews 12:1-3

John 3:17-21 As we turn to John 3:16, we find the real motivation for why God died for us, but before we get there, I want to focus our thoughts briefly on why God had to die. Why doesn't God forgive us regardless of our response to him?    

John 3:1-21 Soren Kierkegaard, the noted Danish Theologian, once said: “God creates out of nothing .  You may say, that’s wonderful. But He does what is still more wonderful: He makes saints out of sinners.” No person ever became a Christian apart from the work of the Holy Spirit. The reason is that the natural mind is hostile to God, but when God’s Spirit begins to work in the hearts and minds of...

Worship is about adoration, the complete giving of ourselves to God. What kind of worshipers are we? Are we passionate? Are we devout? Are we faithful? Or has our worship become defiled?  Routine? Secondary in our lives to other interests or desires? How devoted are we to Christ? How are we devoted to the things of God? What standard are we using to measure our lives? Michael Green shares the foll...

John 2:1-11 John is the only gospel writer who tells us about the wedding celebration at Cana. Jesus and his disciples were invited to a wedding where an amazing miracle took place. It is a significant story because it is the first miraculous sign that Jesus performed. This miracle came not just as a result of a great need but was the opportunity for Jesus to reveal a powerful truth and the nature...

Psalm 96:1-13 One of the most striking, shocking, and enlightening texts of Scripture that should cause us pause is found in Romans 1:21. It speaks of the heart turning away from God.  Although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor thanked him, but their thinking became futile, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Those are haunting words, '...they neither glorified him as God no...

John 1:35-50, John Series What is it that each of us genuinely longs for? So, often, what we think we desire has been culturally conditioned. We want to be rich or have financial security; some want to be famous or have meaningful relationships, but people want to be happy. We need to be loved, heard, understood, and accepted. This need is ultimately found in a person, and that person is Jesus. Fo...

John 1:1934, John Series In a world of contradiction, deception, and destruction, we may wonder how to communicate to others what we consider vitally important and critical to the well-being of ourselves and others. In a world of relativity and cynicism regarding even the idea that truth can be known, we realize that embracing lies leads to self-deception, false assurances, damaging relationships,...