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How can you tell what’s right and what’s wrong? Fortunately, many would say, we live in an age where objective truth has disappeared. What’s true for you isn’t true for others, and what’s wrong for you isn’t wrong for others. But is it truly good for us when morals change from generation to generation and you can write your own? Or, are we missing something? BIG IDEA: Subjective morality leads to...

Why would anyone living today trust the Bible? After all, it’s so full of terrible instances of violence and oppression that it has to be both barbaric and outdated. Besides, you can’t really rely on a document that’s over 2000 years old. It’s been translated so often there’s very little likelihood that what we’re reading is what was written. Right? BIG IDEA: ​ ​The Bible isn’t the point of Christ...

Religion is basically how ancients understood the world, but science has taken us so far beyond that. Between what we know about evolution, astronomy, genetics, biology and so many other sciences, we’ve explained what we used to attribute to God. If science explains or will explain everything, why do we really need God? BIG IDEA: ​ ​You can’t love God with all of your heart and soul if you don’t u...

Lots of people all over the world appreciate, respect, and even follow the teachings of Jesus without believing he rose from the dead. But the people who recorded his story and teachings wouldn’t recommend that. Their message was clear: Jesus rose from the dead. He is Savior and Lord. And He came to defeat death!

Finish this sentence—“I don’t want to go to church, because the church is filled with !” What did you say? Hypocrites. That’s right. I believe that hypocrisy, more than any other issue, has kept more people out of church and from connecting with God. To far too many people, being a Christian and being a hypocrite are one in the same thing. What would Jesus undo? He would undo hypocrisy.

What Would Jesus Undo? What are the things that break the heart of Jesus? Jesus would undo hollow, empty worship that just goes through the motions.

WWJD is not a bad question. It’s just not helpful without an understanding of what Jesus would NOT do. Better yet, it is important for us to consider what Jesus would UNDO. When you’ve “been there, done that” it is easy to slip into indifference. It’s easy to be nonchalant. In fact, it’s quite normal. However, normal is not the way of Jesus. Jesus came to flip normal on its head. Jesus didn’t come...

Letters are powerful, but not as widely read as they used to be. That’s okay. What if instead of writing letters to people who are lost, we could show them the way? What if Instead of just writing letters to someone we love, we could demonstrate that love with more than words? What if instead of longing for a chance to write to someone who is gone, we could live our lives in a way that would carry...

Communication is the lifeblood of healthy relationships, especially marriage. Almost all couples (97 percent) who rate their communication with their partner as excellent are happily married, compared to only 56 percent who rate their communication as poor. When it comes to communication, we should NEVER stop growing and developing.

Think of the deals you’ve struck in your life. Your first car. Your first real job. Your first house. You saw what you wanted, did what you had to do to get it—and you came home with a done deal. No deal compares to winning a wife, though. You pursued her with all the courage, creativity, and resources you could muster. Then, one day, you closed the deal. Your wedding day was the day you proved yo...

What is the biggest need of most men? Every woman thinks they know the answer to that question, but your answer would probably be wrong. Yet asking that question might be the key for women to get what they need and want most—unconditional love.

In every relationship, we bring with us a box of expectations. Some of us may have a smaller box with very few expectations; while others of us have larger boxes with significant expectations. As we move through the relationship, we think we know what is in each other’s box of expectations. Often, we think our box of expectations even matches. Yet, couples face all kinds of challenges in their rel...

God uses detours in our own lives to bring us closer to Him. God will take us on a detour because He is constructing something in our lives. Today, we will see Joseph finally realize his dreams and God brings him to his destination on a 22 year detour—to not only rescue an entire nation, but his family as well.

There is something about revenge that is enticing. We love it. Think about our favorite sorties. Don’t we like to see the bad guy get what they deserve? Most of our favorite movies or TV shows involve some highly trained loner who is out to right all of the world’s injustices. Revenge seems like a good idea, but it never satisfies. BIG IDEA: ​ ​Forgiveness is easier said than done. Do it anyway.

Today, it seems like everyone is all about dreaming big. There is an entire industry that centers on selling people a dream lifestyle built on travel, money, and image. The problem with dream culture is that it often ignores the important planning that makes dreams come true. BIG IDEA: ​ ​A dream doesn’t mean a thing apart from God’s plan.

God uses detours in our own lives to bring us closer to Him. God will take us on a detour because He is constructing something in our lives. But how do you know God has you on a detour rather than simply experiencing a bad circumstance? How can we know that this is a God-ordained detour rather than things just aren’t working out right now? BIG IDEA: To get unstuck from a detour, serve others who a...

As we continue to study Joseph’s story and the detours God took him on, notice how God uses detours in our own lives to bring us closer to Him. Sometimes detours take longer than we hoped for, but remember that the Lord has a purpose and a reason for them and that we can trust His timing. BIG IDEA: God cares more about the development of the dreamer than the realization of the dream.

A detour is an unexpected shift in the route we were trying to travel. We often think of detours that happen when we are in our cars, but sometimes our life takes a detour and we end up in a place we never dreamed. Yet God allows and uses detours to grow us and to get us towards our ultimate goal—to a place where we can be used by Him. BIG IDEA: The purpose of detours is to develop you for what Go...

Some labels withstand the test of time: Conan the Barbarian, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But your nickname in grade school? Probably not. Some labels are honoring: Alexander the Great. Others aren’t as flattering: Rahab the Harlot. But is God able to do something through us regardless of what our labels, our pasts, or our reputations might suggest? You bet. BIG IDEA: People with pasts are the point.

You might think the Bible is filled with good, godly people. And it is. But these people have their fair share of dark secrets and shadowy pasts. Judah and Tamar are no exception. He’s a little shady—no, he’s a lot shady. She took extreme measures. So why in the world would God decide to include them in Jesus’ ancestry? BIG IDEA: ​ ​Dysfunction doesn’t disqualify you from His-Story

Whether we’re religious or not, we all have at least one thing in common; we’ve all made some messes in our lives. You’ve said things like, “I messed that up,” “I made a mess of that,” or, “My life is a mess.” We’ve all been in, are in, or are only one decision away from a mess. Fortunately, Christmas reminds us that Christianity is not for religious people but for messy people, just like us. BIG...

There’s always more. There’s always better. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. It’s easy for us to look at what our neighbors have and assume their lives are better than ours. But what if their stuff isn’t making them as happy as we assume? BIG IDEA: Contentment is tied to what we “do” not in what we “have.”

What do you value? And more importantly, why do you value it? Often, the belief that what you’re pursuing has greater value than what you have can drive the sense of entitlement most of us feel. But what if the myth of the greener grass has caused you to overvalue what you’re chasing? THE BIG IDEA: Overvaluing the wrong things will cause you to overlook the best things.

The grass is always greener on the other side. It may be an old cliché, but it lurks in every one of us. It’s that thing we don’t currently have that we think will give us what we want most. It’s an insatiable appetite for more. It never leads to joy. It robs us of life. So, what do we do with our longing for the greener grass? THE BIG IDEA: Don't waste your own life wishing for a different one.

Your favorite candidate either won or lost based on how our country voted last week. However, the church will win or lose based on our behavior in the aftermath of the election. The unity and diversity of the early church shocked and intrigued the ancient world. Ours should as well. THE BIG IDEA: ​ ​Jesus is the King who came to reverse the order of things.