Restoration Living

When will the world come to an end? Are we in the last days? Are you worried about being left behind? These are questions I often heard when I was growing up. In church services, we would listen to sermons on how Jesus was coming back soon and that a massive time of tribulation was about to go on the Church around the world. Fears of the Antichrist, the Mark of the Beast, and fiery judgment left m...

When will the world come to an end? Are we in the last days? Are you worried about being left behind? These are questions I often heard when I was growing up. In church services, we would listen to sermons on how Jesus was coming back soon and that a massive time of tribulation was about to come on the Church around the world. Fears of the Antichrist, the Mark of the Beast, and fiery judgment left...

When will the world come to an end? Are we in the last days? Are you worried about being left behind? These are questions I often heard when I was growing up. In church services, we would listen to sermons on how Jesus was coming back soon and that a massive time of tribulation was about to come on the Church around the world. Fears of the Antichrist, the Mark of the Beast, and fiery judgment left...

God wants to partner with people, so He created covenants with them. Covenants are promises held by the honor of the person who made them. This is why God's covenants are so important. Unlike human pledges, which can be broken with little consequence, God's promises are entirely unconditional (a Royal Grant) or punitively conditional (Suzerain Vassal). In our previous episodes, we looked a...

God wants to partner with people, so He created covenants with them. Covenants are promises held by the honor of the person who made them. This is why God's covenants are so important. Unlike human pledges, which can be broken with little consequence, God's promises are entirely unconditional (a Royal Grant) or punitively conditional (Suzerain Vassal). In our last session, we looked at 2 m...

God wants to partner with people, so He created covenants with them. Covenants are promises held by the honor of the person who made them. This is why God's covenants are so important. Unlike human pledges, which can be broken with little consequence, God's promises are entirely unconditional (a Royal Grant) or punitively conditional (Suzerain Vassal). In our last session, we looked at the...

In our culture, making promises takes work. Trusting someone to keep their word can be challenging, so we require something in return. It may be collateral that we return when the promise is kept or interest charged until a loan is repaid, but because people are hard to trust, we have difficulties believing they will keep their word. Thankfully, God does not break His promises. When He says He wil...

It has been said that motherhood is the exquisite inconvenience of being another person's everything. This is certainly true in the hearts and minds of little children (and us bigger ones) that have been loved and raised well by amazing mothers. For this Mother's Day, join us for a special message where we look to the life of Hannah to see why being a mother is a joy like no other. Her willingness...

It's nice being a member of an organization because memberships always bring perks. It may be discounts on purchases, access to opportunities, or even a form of pride that we show off to others. What can easily be confused with membership, however, is relationship. When I have a relationship with someone, it has perks as well. But the purpose of the relationship is not the bonuses it sometimes...

It is easy to say something about yourself, but it is harder to prove it. I can tell someone I'm a marathoner, but what if they never see me running? There are always external actions that overflow from our internal identity. This is one of the great truths of life that Jesus wants His followers to know and apply. Join us as we continue our study of the Sermon on the Mount to see what Jesus ha...

Prayer is a difficult thing for many people. Some revert to the old King James English when they pray, and others love to repeat God's name repeatedly. Others feel they must say fancy and eloquent words, while some are so afraid to pray that they don't. Then, there is the trouble of feeling like we "have" to pray. We may not say it out loud, but we think that if we don't pray...

Everyone enjoys a great love story. Whether it is a 'rom-com' movie, a Shakespearian play, a dramatic TV show, or a tear-jerking novel, we are always captivated by the power of love to overcome any obstacles. As Christians, we spend most of our spiritual lives focused on Christmas and Easter. These are certainly two of the most pivotal points in time for our faith, but there is so much mor...

It happens to us all at some point in life; we think we hear or understand something only to find out later we had it all backward. Usually, this leaves us feeling frustrated, confused, or even outright angry. It can cause us to forget important things, lose precious time, or even miss our chance at once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. As we celebrate Palm Sunday, we usually focus on how the crowds c...

Whenever there is tension between Christians and those from secular worldviews, the idea of judging often comes up. They usually remind us that Jesus said we shouldn't judge, but here we are telling people they are wrong and need to live as the Bible says. This point of contention is even popular among Christians as a way to keep from having to tell anyone they need to change or confront another p...

What you focus on grows; that's just a fact of life. Marketing departments everywhere use our shopping histories or recent internet searches to determine what ads and commercials we have to watch. They know that if we believe that our 'stuff' is not good enough, we will fall into the trap of thinking we have to constantly be upgrading our technology, clothes, homes, cars, and so on. When we focus...

Here in the U.S., we don't really 'do' fasting. Giving something up (usually food) to spend more time with God is not what we like, because it means making ourselves uncomfortable. During the time of Jesus' earthly ministry, however, fasting was a normal part of religious life. The struggle they had was that, like charity and prayer, they often fasted to get recognition and praise from people. In...

In the Christian faith, we spend a lot of time praying. In church services, at weddings, funerals, before meals, by hospital beds, when we are scared, when we want something, and all sorts of other times and occasions. There is never really a 'wrong' time to pray to God. The struggle we often encounter is that our prayers can become a good luck charm; we believe if we say them repeatedly, they wil...

There are many opportunities in our world to give to those in need. We have many charities, foundations, grants, fellowships, and programs where people can donate their time, talents, and treasure to help others. The problem we often run into is that our charity can become toxic; it can slowly change our hearts and move our intentions away from doing good to help others to do charity to make ourse...

Our culture loves stories involving good vs. evil; superheroes who defeat the villains, police officers who catch the criminal, and the victim who gets revenge on their enemy. There is something emotionally satisfying about seeing a bad guy get their punishment for what they have done. In real life, however, we recognize that no amount of punishment can replace the things that enemies take from us...

Many of us know what it means to make a promise, as well as how it feels to break one. To get around breaking promises, many times we will look for loopholes or ways out (such as "crossing our fingers'). The same thing was going on in Israel during Jesus' earthly ministry, especially among the religious elite. They had found ways to work around the laws within the Law of Moses to get out of their...

The struggle with living in a nation with laws is that we can find loopholes; ways to follow the 'letter' of the law but not the 'heart' of it. The same happened in Israel during Jesus' earthly ministry, especially among the religious elite. They had found ways to work around the laws within the Law of Moses to claim that they lived holy lives while having unclean hearts.  Here, again, Jesus...

The struggle with people is that we hurt each other, and the old saying is true: "hurt people hurt people." A sad part of connection and community is that people hurt, cheat, betray, and abuse each other in mean and terrible ways. When we experience these pains caused by others, we want to hold those things against them in our hearts. In God's Kingdom, however, we are taught to live life very diff...

In the Church, we can so easily drift from one extreme to another. In some circles, we move towards legalism and say we have to follow all of the commands in the Law of Moses. Others say that we have been set free from the Law of Moses and now subscribe to radical freedom where they can live however they "feel" is right. What did Jesus have to say about this? Join us for the next part of our study...

We have systems in our world that work together to make things happen. We have systems for finance, legal codes, and even regulations for transportation and shipping. In the time of Jesus, the Jewish way of life centered around their religious system. The religious leaders shaped this system to be so burdensome that most people couldn't possibly meet all of its demands. Jesus came to bring a Kingd...

In the Christian life, it can become easy to dismiss our contributions. We feel like since we aren't pastors, evangelists, or Bible scholars that we don't have anything to help others grow in their faith. In this episode, we look at the model Jesus set for us to learn how we can utilize what God has given us to do amazing things for His Kingdom.