Living Stones Church, Red Deer, Alberta

John 13-14  

Malachi 3 God wants to change how many of us see money and possessions. Rather than allow them to possess us, which usually entraps us into debt, God wants to free us from that stronghold and learn to use what He blesses us in more significant ways. How we use what God has given us reveals much about who we are. Do we see our resources as a tool to help others? One of the more significant paradigm...

Isaiah 61

1 Thessalonians 1

Philippians 4

Isaiah 8 & 9 Where does hope come from? The short answer is God, but why do we so often settle for gloom and doom? Why can’t we get past the quagmire of distress and despair? For a vast amount of time, the history of Israel and Judah was threatened or subjugated by foreign kingdoms and empires. The issue for them, as it is for us in the current situation we find ourselves in, is where we place...

Isaiah 63:9 Trials, tests, crises, disappointments, heartbreak, rejection, and various other sorrows that invade our lives often cause us to ask questions. If God is so loving and good, why this loss, this pain, and struggle in my life? The atheist will answer cynically; it is because there is no God. But the Christmas story is part of God’s answer to our question. There is another way to deal wit...

1 Thessalonians 5:12-18 We are all born into a family, or else by God’s grace, and we have been chosen through adoption. What is true in the natural realm is equally true in the spiritual. We are born again and adopted into God’s forever family, which is called the church. It is our eternal family. The church is more than an organization; it is a living organism. It is relational in nature, more l...

Matthew 28:18-20 Do we understand God’s purpose for us as a people? Are we committed to God’s plan for our lives, or has the business of life caused us to become caught up with the rat race? Do we have a purpose that reflects something beyond ourselves and our families? C. S. Lewis once wrote: “The glory of God, and, as our only means to glorifying Him, the salvation of human souls, is the real bu...

Philippians 2:12-18

2 Peter 3 Where are we headed? Where is our world going? What is God really doing? There are so many cries of warning today, from so many different quarters: from the economy to the ecology. After a while, we can turn a deaf ear. We feel that everything will somehow remain the same. Yet just a perusal of history would warn against that kind of ostrich, “bury your head in the sand” mentality. In Pe...

Psalm 95

Philippians 1 & 2

2 Peter 2

2 Peter 1:12-21  

2 Peter 1:1-11 This week’s message is a continuation of what we had looked at last week; the introduction of Peter’s second letter. I introduced the idea of learning how to stand when everything around us is crumbling. One of the problems that we encounter in the Christian life is the balance between what God does and what we are responsible for. In other words, how are we to respond to what God d...

2 Peter 1:1-11 What often trips us up in life’s most challenging moments is not the problems but a wrong perspective of the situation and our own inability to handle things. If anyone understood this as a close follower of Jesus, it was Peter. In his second letter, Peter conveys something critical for our spiritual growth and development for us to stand regardless of what is happening to us and ar...

Matthew 6:25-34

Romans 12:1-2

1 Peter 5:5-14  

1 Peter 5:1-4  

Matthew 6:19-24

1 Peter 4:12-19 There is no crown without a cross! Humility is the means to exaltation. It is a recognition that apart from God’s grace and a dependence upon Him, we will not run the race of life successfully. Yet, went we embrace God’s path there are significant obstacles that must be overcome. Great trials and challenges attend the path of the follower of Christ. John Bunyan’s, incredible allego...