Springwell Sundays

Conventional wisdom says that the louder we yell, the more we are heard. When we want to see change, we should be yelling louder. Jesus taught something completely different. Changing the world is more than how loud we yell. It's about how loud we live.

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When we look back on our lives, we can see God’s presence. He has always been with us. He has even been working through the tough circumstances to bring about good. God is with us and His being with us is a really big deal.

God is our Provider. The trouble is that we are usually only aware that He is our Provider when we need His provision.

God is who He is. He is a living and very personal God with emotions, intellect, and will. He will come intimately close to us if we seek Him. He is truly independent but still He wants to have a relationship with us - His creation.

In order for our worship to be effective, we have to consider the source of everything we have and everything we want. Considering the source means that we begin to live life with a different view of what we have and what we feel like we lack.

God is great and mighty. Our worship - our presence - doesn’t make Him God. He longs for us to know Him and to understand the depths of His goodness and power. It’s hard to see how big God is from the center of our circumstances, but our doubt doesn’t diminish His strength.

Worship isn't something we attend on Sunday morning or something we watch from a distance. Worship is meant to be more than hand raising and spiritual talk. The worship that touches the heart of God is about more, it's about our lives.

We all worship something - even if we don’t believe in Jesus. There’s a war going on out in the world over your worship. Satan is advances his rebellion against God by distracting us and getting us to focus on style and things that really don’t matter.

Commitment isn’t a popular word, but it’s a biblical truth. We need to be people committed to living out the message of the Gospel and taking our place within the larger picture of the church. God uses us and those around us, in unique but unified ways, to shine the light of Jesus.

Busyness, pain, and laziness are barriers to community. Some of us have been hurt by churches in the past. Some of us just don’t want to make time to go. Others just don’t want to put forth the effort. How can we make a true connection and avoid these barriers?

How are we doing as followers of Jesus? Do we reflect the love of Jesus to the people we encounter every day? Can God count on you to be used by Him to help change the world?

To get the most out of your time with Jesus, you need to know exactly who He is. Jesus is the one who changes everything. He can use anyone to do any job. He can change the hearts of sinners. He finds potential, when everyone else sees a problem.

Everybody is important in the kingdom of heaven. It doesn’t matter if you’re popular or charismatic. What matters is that you matter to God. You just have to be willing to be faithful in whatever God asks you to do.

To be a hero doesn’t mean that you have to perform great heroic tasks that wow the crowds. As a follower of Jesus, some of the greatest things we do are the small simple acts of love and kindness towards others.

Sometimes it seems like we love to beat up on ourselves. It seems that we're really good at recognizing our shortfalls while seeing everyone else's strengths. But when God works in us and through us, we can recognize, not just others', but our own strengths as well.

What was new becomes stale. What was once a blessing suddenly become lackluster. How do we keep from losing the awe and wonder we once had with God and the blessings He gives? We can renew our passion for the seemingly common things by learning to recognize God’s activity around us.

Have you ever had trouble keeping a resolution? Did you start out good and then gradually slide back into old patterns and old thinking? Our willpower is never enough, our timing is often too hurried, and we try to change all by ourselves. Without God, it can be impossible to maintain any forward momentum in our lives.

We all have character defects. Some of them are outside of our control. It may seem like an uphill battle to quit an addiction, or to end a bad behavior, but there is a way to bring about change. When we trust God and rely on Him to do the work inside us that we can’t, we find the strength to get over it.

Living with regret can shape our lives and relationships. Guilt destroys our confidence and keeps us stuck in the past. We have to learn how to deal with it and take an honest looks at our lives. We have to take responsibility for our actions, ask God for forgiveness, and admit our faults.

For some of us, there are those things that we just can’t seem to let go of that’s not letting us move forward. We need to let go of our pride, guilt, fear, worry, and doubt. Taking a step towards healing looks like us relying on God’s strength.

We’ve tried to change. We’ve tried to break some old habits. We’ve tried to do better but haven’t had lasting results. Admitting that we need to make a change is the hardest part. God knows it. You just need to own up to it and face the problem you’ve been ignoring for a long time.

Our perspective is important. We can often view the same things, but the difference is made in how we view them. What if what you really need isn’t for God to change your surroundings, but to change your perspective where you are? That makes all the difference when it comes to walking in our purpose.

God cannot be worn out by our neediness. When we come to Him with our sin in the deepest, darkest moments of our lives, He completely delivers us from the power and pollution of sin. When we are in the depths of weariness, we have to remember: there is prayer, forgiveness, waiting, and hope.

Sometimes it seems like those who don’t do right and choose to live opposite of the way of God prosper and have really nice things and even more fun. Sin can be fun, but the fun doesn’t last. When we trust God and walk with Him long enough, we learn that His way is the good way. His way is the way that produces lasting joy, happiness, peace, and hope.