Ring of Truth

Have you ever seen a photomosaic picture? It’s one large image that’s actually made up of hundreds of tiny photos. If you’re too far away, you don’t see the individual moments represented. But if you’re too close, you miss the big picture. Well, today, Pastor Dan urges you not to worry so much about seeing everything or understanding all the details of what’s going on. Instead, you can choose to t...

Humility and teachability go hand in hand. And in today’s passage, you’ll see how Habakkuk is a great example of someone who is wanting to learn from the Lord. Habakkuk doesn’t understand the answers that God has given him. He’s having a hard time making sense of the way God is going to move. But, as Pastor Dan explains, Habakkuk knows that the problem lies with him, not with God’s answer. We can...

Do you feel perplexed like Habakkuk? You just don’t understand why God isn’t doing anything about the broken and unjust things that you see. You wonder where He is and why He’s allowing this stuff to continue. Maybe, like this prophet, you’ve been praying for a long time but are still waiting on an answer from the Lord. Well, today, Pastor Dan helps you process your experience as you study the con...

That’s a hard reminder from Pastor Dan today. What are you putting too much trust in? Is it your retirement fund or finances? Is it your position at work or your role in the church? Maybe it’s your relationships? None of these things are bad on their own, but they become idols when you elevate them over the Lord. Well, the Assyrians thought that their fortified cities and military might be enough...

Not everything in life is a “once and done”. Though your children may not agree, you don’t take a shower one time and then expect to never have to do it again. It’s something you have to keep doing to stay clean. Well, today, Pastor Dan explains that your connection with the Lord also requires continual attention. It doesn’t matter how closely you walked with Him ten years ago, it's all about what...

Some days it’s all you can do to put one foot in front of the other. It feels like you’re being hit from all sides, swamped by the storms of life. Well, today, Pastor Dan reminds you that don’t have to be swept away by the hard things that are going on. Today’s passage reminds you that God is your refuge, a safe place to run to in times of trouble. It’s His hand that’s reaching out as you’re sinki...

Where does your hope lie? Does it lie in politics? Does it lie in the next election cycle? Putting your faith in anything in this world will lead you to false hope and false promise. You will be disappointed if you trust in worldly people to bring peace and restoration. But, you can put your hope in Jesus. Jesus has the power to bring healing and grace. Today, Pastor Dan will remind us about where...

Have you ever sinned before? The answer for anyone is yes. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But luckily God has spared you from the Judgment of your sins through his mercy. It isn’t just enough to love God’s mercy for ourselves. We are called to extend this Mercy to others as well. God’s calling on our lives is to love others as He loves us. To treat others how we want to b...

Are giving God what He really desires? Or are you just offering God worship without a relationship? It isn’t enough to lift your hands, tithe, or do other religious practices. God wants to have a personal relationship with you. God wants your love and your obedience. Today, Pastor Dan will use the book of Micah to help teach you about what kind of worship God is looking for. Micah reminded the peo...

While many of us might think it's rather bizarre that Jews are in part blind to The Gospel, all we have to do is look back to before we were saved. Now that you have that thought in mind, all you have to do is add spiritual blindness brought on by The Lord. However, as Pastor Dan discusses in his message today, this blindness is only temporary, and will one day be lifted. In his study, you'll lear...

Whether we care to admit it or not, many of us can easily consume way more information than what we'd normally consider healthy. From politics, pop culture, fashion, or otherwise, the world is constant feed distractions and nonsense. In today's message, Pastor Dan will both encourage you and remind you that we're called to look ahead for The Kingdom. In his study, you'll learn the importance of se...

The saying goes that the only things certain in life are death and taxes. But another one that could be added to the list is war. Even though you might not hear about them, war has been going on continually, someplace on the earth, for nearly a century. People have tried – unsuccessfully – to make the world a war-free place. But according to the Bible, as you’ll hear in Pastor Dan’s message today,...

In Micah’s Judah and Israel, the people who were supposed to be the most humble were the least humble. The men who were charged by God to be the most even-handed were open to being bribed. And as a result, of course, the common people had to live under injustice. Although they thought they were getting away with this, Pastor Dan’s teaching will show you that they didn’t. God was watching and He wa...

You’ve heard the saying, “There’s nothing new under the sun”. that’s true of many things; it’s certainly true of how governments treat their citizens. Loading them down with taxes, abusing them through unfair regulations, and more. And this was Israel’s situation at the time of Micah, too. You’ll learn in Pastor Dan’s teaching that the mistreatment of the people didn’t escape God’s notice. He sent...

Do you dig deeper into the news where you live? How about national or world news? Things seem to be getting worse and, like running down a hill, harder to bring to a stop. People have said for years that things are the worst they’ve ever seen, and they might be right. It’s hard to conjure up any hope. But as you’ll hear in Pastor Dan’s teaching today, God gave a hopeful message to the Israelites e...

Sometimes you’ll see a family with two different parenting styles. One parent is telling their kids to toe the line, and sit up straight; the other one is wanting to be their child’s friend and lets the kid do what they like. And while the child will tend to gravitate toward the permissive parent when they’re young, many times as an adult they’ll regret not listening to the more disciplined parent...

There are people who say that God’s a bully, that He forces His will on people. If you read the Bible, though, it becomes pretty clear that God is far from a bully. He’s always willing for you to have what it is you think you want. The Israelites of Micah’s time basically told God they didn’t want to hear from Him. And while He did send a few prophets to keep warning them, you’ll hear in Pastor Da...

The Israelites had a history of turning away from God. Even at the beginning, when God delivered them from slavery. While they were happy to be free, at the first sign of danger, they were blaming God for their difficulty. Then for hundreds of years, there was a cycle of following God and then turning away from Him. God sent messages – warnings, really, through prophets. One of those, Micah, and P...

When you look at the leadership in this country, it’s easy to say, “Well, that’s how they’re going to be, but it doesn’t have much effect on my life.” But they do affect your life. The attitudes they convey trickle down into the way regular people act towards each other, too. And this was some of what the prophet Micah was addressing, as you’ll hear in Pastor Dan’s teaching today. As you listen to...

Israel was a unique country in that the God of the universe had chosen them as His special people. He gave them dietary and other rules that made them different than all the countries around them. He gave them victories over the stronger nations and made them feared by others. But as you’ll hear in Pastor Dan’s teaching today, God also gave them strong warnings to stay true to Him. And as they dri...

There’s an epidemic of depression in America these days. Suicides and drug abuse are at all-time levels. The Church hasn’t been immune to these problems, either. In the story, Pastor Dan’s going to be teaching, Jonah was depressed, too. But you’ll find out that the reason for his depression was kind of a dumb, self-centered one. But you’ll learn that God didn’t just strike him dead; God tried to b...

Have you ever heard someone be upset that someone people consider ‘bad’ – a murderer, for instance – came to saving faith? Or if someone lower on the social scale had a miraculous event in their life? You probably don’t think much of that person, do you? Instead of rejoicing, this person’s complaining about the character of the person that received God’s grace. And the story Pastor Dan’s teaching...

One of the tough things about being a parent is having your kids let you down. They do something you and they know they shouldn’t have, or they make a promise and fail to keep it. Even knowing that they’re fallen people (just like you), it still hurts just a little bit. This should give you some insight into how God feels when you let Him down. But as Pastor Dan will be teaching, God is always the...

“I need you to save me from me!” Do you relate to that sentiment? Have you ever pleaded with God to change your heart and make you new? In today's message, Pastor Dan teaches about the prayer that Jonah prayed for from the belly of a whale. He declared, “Salvation belongs to the Lord!” before he was saved from his perilous situation. The salvation he was declaring was so much greater than his curr...

Can a man survive three nights in the belly of a whale? Is there any truth to this well-known Bible story? In today's message, Pastor Dan will argue that the story of Jonah not only really occurred, but that it also was representational of the future death and resurrection that Jesus would experience. Jesus himself connected his story to Jonah's and so doubting the validity of the Jonah story woul...