Pursuing God with Gene Appel

How did the Israelites handle the many obstacles they faced in the wilderness? Hebrews 11:30 tells us, "By faith the walls of Jericho fell." Today I want to share why navigating change means learning to live by faith, moment by moment, instead of waiting until we feel ready. Pursuing God with Gene Appel is designed to help you pursue God, build community, and unleash compassion. Grounded...

The more people who are pursuing God and building true community, the more compassion we are going to unleash into a broken world. Today we want to share a vision for Eastside Christian Church, a hope that one day it can be said of us, just as it was said of the early church, that there were no needy persons among us. That kind of vision starts small, with how we choose to see and care for the peo...

We all go through seasons where we wander, even spiritually. And just like the Israelites, sometimes we build our own golden calves to chase after instead of holding onto what's true and steady. Today I want to challenge us, wherever we're at right now, to align or realign our lives with the God who made us. Pursuing God with Gene Appel is designed to help you pursue God, build community...

Time and again, the Israelites missed out on joy, no matter how much God provided, they kept slipping back into a posture of ungratefulness. Today you’ll be reminded of what Scripture says in 1 Thessalonians 5:18, "Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." Gratitude isn't just a nice idea; it's a choice we make even when life doesn&...

Why do we struggle with change? Why do we glamorize the past, remembering it as so much better than it actually was? Today, I want to walk through three factors that contribute to our resistance to change, and how understanding them can help us move forward with more freedom instead of getting stuck looking back. Pursuing God with Gene Appel is designed to help you pursue God, build community, and...

Psychologists tell us that too much life change at once can push us into overload, and that can show up in all kinds of emotional and physical ways. We’ll explore the wisdom we can find in the Israelites' forty-year journey through the wilderness, a story that shows us how to navigate change with confidence and a real sense of God's presence with us. Because no matter where life takes yo...

Most of us try to fix our lives the same way, by working harder, pushing more, and trying again. But what if the problem was never your effort? I've come to believe that real purpose was never something we could grind our way into. It shows up when we stop gripping the wheel and hand the keys of our lives over to God. That means letting Jesus not only forgive us, but fill us with His Spirit a...

If you could only get one thing right in your entire life, what would it be? Solomon spent years chasing wealth, pleasure, and accomplishment before he landed on his answer, and it fit into just three words: remember your Creator. Everything else he poured himself into eventually faded, but that one truth held. Today, we're talking about why this is the foundation the rest of life gets built...

I've watched people build impressive lives out of everything they can see and touch, and still feel hollow at the end of the day. Solomon knew that feeling. After chasing every pleasure and possession the world had to offer, he landed on one blunt conclusion: it's all meaningless. What he finally discovered is that real purpose is never found in the things right in front of us. We keep a...

If you could afford anything you wanted, would you finally feel content? Solomon could, and what he discovered surprised even him. He was a king with more wealth, power, and pleasure than anyone in history, and he still walked away restless. Today, we're looking at why finding a path in life and discovering your real purpose are two very different things. The one thing all his money could nev...

Have you ever stopped in the middle of a packed week and wondered if any of it actually matters? I've been there, and so was Solomon, the wisest and richest man who ever lived. He denied himself nothing this world had to offer, yet he still came up empty. This week we're learning from his search what really separates a life that's simply busy from one that's truly meaningful. A...

All week, we've walked through four ways to love the people in our lives the way God loves us: understanding, acceptance, discipline, and love. But here's the honest truth I want to close with. None of it can be sustained on willpower alone. You've probably already tried that and found its limits. Jesus said in John 15, "Apart from me you can do nothing," and He meant it....

There's a difference between loving someone and being loving toward them. The love can be real, but if it isn't expressed in a language the other person actually hears, they can still feel unseen. The trouble is we tend to show love the way we understand it, not the way they receive it. Psalm 145 says God is rich in love and loving toward all He has made, and we become more like Him when...

In any relationship where you have real influence, love sometimes means saying the hard thing. But there's a difference between correcting someone and punishing them. Punishing is about the past, making someone pay for what they did. Correcting is about the future, helping them grow. Psalm 145 reminds me that God upholds those who fall and lifts up those who are bowed down, and that's th...

The people closest to us often get the least unconditional acceptance from us. We hold our highest expectations for the ones we love most, and pull back when they fall short. But that's not how God treats me. Psalm 145 reminds me He's gracious and compassionate, meeting us where we are. Accepting someone doesn't mean approving of everything they do. You can speak hard truth while st...

If you ask people what they most want from the people closest to them, it usually comes down to one thing: to be understood. Not fixed, not corrected, not molded into someone else's image, just truly seen for who they are. This week we're drawing from Psalm 145, one of the richest portraits of God in all of Scripture, to explore what it means to love someone well. God knows exactly how e...

Tomorrow you're going to write a new chapter in your story, and the only real question is what kind of pen you'll be holding. All week in Exodus 14, we watched two million people stuck between the Red Sea and an army, caught in the cycle of fear, sarcasm, and worst-case thinking. But I've decided to throw in with Moses and plant my flag with the fear-not, stand-firm, expect-God&apos...

When my back is against the wall and I'm out of options, what I really believe about God gets exposed. The Israelites found that out fast, pinned between the Red Sea and an army with nowhere to run. But notice what God told them in Exodus 14:15: quit crying out, quit circling the problem, and move. He didn't take them around the thing they feared. He took them through it. And that's...

When fear takes over, it has a way of making me forget what's actually true. The Israelites felt it the moment they were trapped between the Red Sea and an army closing in, and I've felt it myself, lying awake at night wondering if I'd misread God on the biggest decision of my life. But in Exodus 14:13, Moses laid out a better plan: fear not, and stand firm. I can let go of my fear...

Be honest: do you make better or worse decisions when you're afraid? Yesterday, we named three things that show up when our backs are against the wall: fear, sarcasm, and worst-case thinking. Today, we slow down and look at how they feed each other into a cycle that never takes us anywhere. Jesus put it plainly in Matthew 6:27, asking who of us can add a single hour to our life by worrying. S...

What are we gonna do now? That's the question a lot of us are asking as financial pressure and uncertainty keep piling up. This week we're looking at the Israelites trapped at the edge of the Red Sea in Exodus 14, a moment where fear, sarcasm, and worst-case thinking took over. Here's what I keep coming back to: fear and faith are both about what we can't yet see. So when the p...

Loving others compassionately is the natural overflow of loving God completely and seeing yourself clearly. And one of the most tangible expressions of that love is what you do with your money. Spending wisely, saving consistently, and giving generously aren't just financial habits. They're a living sermon about what you actually believe. When the people watching your life see all three...

Before you can love your neighbor well, you have to love yourself accurately. That means holding two things in tension: understanding how uniquely made you are, and understanding how ordinary you are. When you affirm the people in your life for who they actually are, you free them from searching for acceptance in the wrong places. And when you help them see their ordinariness honestly, you open th...

The most powerful legacy you can leave isn't a speech or a lesson. It's a life. When the people around you see faith woven into ordinary moments, generosity practiced consistently, and God treated as genuinely central, they're learning something no conversation could fully teach. Today we explore what it looks like to leave a legacy of loving God completely, not just by saying it, b...

Most of us are carrying patterns we didn't choose, financial anxiety, broken trust, wounds we never named, inherited from the people who raised us. And if we don't deal with them honestly, we don't break them. We pass them on. Today we look at two myths that keep generational patterns alive and what Scripture says about the slow, intentional work of healing. Breaking a cycle isn&apo...