The Central Moment

Are you weary? Are you spiritually thirsty? Do you need refreshing? God’s invitation is to come and drink from his life-giving fountain, to “draw water from the wells of salvation.”

Jesus is coming to reign and rule on the earth! What human leaders have never been able to do, he will do. He will bring global peace and fill the world with the knowledge and worship of him!

More than religious busyness and human hype, having a vision of God in his holiness and glory will melt us down and remake us. The bottom line in our lives will become his way, not our way; his mission, not our distractions or self-made machinations.

Sometimes we need the bad news before we can appreciate the good news. To the Old Testament prophets, we are the bad news -- our wandering hearts, our sinful habits and our erring affections. But then God steps in!

Wealth, technology, mobility, spiritism -- they permeated Old Testament Israel and they permeate today’s America. Yet a day of reckoning is coming, the Day of the Lord. All that is proud will be brought low and the Lord alone will be exalted!

What is it about our worship that might sicken God’s heart? What would make him weary of our singing and our church activities? It’s our claim to love him while not living for him and ignoring those around us. But God's invitation remains open: “Come now, let us settle the matter.”

Crystal Martin closes out this Valentine's week in Song of Songs with a final look at the power of love so beautifully expressed through this poetic book.

Pastor Sarah Marsiglio returns today with three important questions we should be asking ourselves as it relates to our relationship with Christ: Who is Christ to you? Have you accepted that you are His beloved? What are you doing with the intimacy accessible to you?

Today, Pastor Jill McDaniel helps us see how the story of Song of Songs is a picture of love that grows and matures over time. May we find the same security as we pursue a deeper relationship with Christ.

Crystal Martin continues our look through Song of Songs this Valentine's week as we celebrate the beauty, joy, and safety of love between God-created man and woman. 

Today we welcome Pastor Sarah Marsiglio to The Central Moment as we kick off a Valentine's week look at Song of Songs, and the implications this book of love poetry has for believers.

Jesus goes with us to work. He redeems our attitudes towards those we work for, as well as those who work for us. And, ultimately, He reminds us who it is who really holds our paycheck!

Few influences are more critical to the healthy development of a child than the nurturing of loving parents. In an age of cynicism and disrespect, children need to hear the word of the Lord to obey their parents, and parents need to hear the word of the Lord to not anger their children, but to instruct and train them in the Lord.

Marriage between a man and a woman is the closest picture on earth of the relationship that Christ seeks to have with his church. It is personal, intimate, lasting, and holy. So let’s give marriage our best -- loving and respecting each other in Jesus’ name.

Love is contagious -- especially the love of God. Having been loved and forgiven unconditionally by Jesus, how can we not extend the same to others? We love each other because he first loved us!

Let’s love people in such a way that Jesus himself feels the love! Jesus so identifies with his living church and his beloved children that he personalizes what is done to them as if it were done to him. May we see every relationship through that lens.

In a world with millions of people who have no access to the gospel, the mission of Jesus must become our priority. Christ’s promise, in turn, is that he will be “with us” as his witnessing, missional church. The task before us to make disciples of all nations is therefore doable!

God’s calling on our lives is a mark of God’s sovereign choice, before we were ever born. But for us to live that calling out we need the reality of God’s greatest promise: “I will be with you.” That promise makes our insecurities irrelevant and our impossibilities meaningless!

Out of his mercy God sent his Son Jesus to reach us, save us and be with us. Christ in us is greater than anything around us. His promise to be with us gives us faith-filled courage and overcoming victory.

The promise of God to be with us calls us to a life of trust. God is searching the earth for trusting, open hearts. If we seek after him, he will allow himself to be found and we can live the miracle of ‘God with us.’

We can either have the Spirit of God upon our lives or the spirit of darkness. The promise of God to be with us still leaves us with a choice -- will it be Jesus’ way or the world’s way? Will it be God’s Spirit upon us or his Spirit departing from us?

There are times in our lives when God strips us down, overwhelms us, leaves us with few human resources and then declares: “I am with you.” That is the prescription for the supernatural!

Some things we need to let go in order to courageously move on. We can’t live in the past but we must keep moving forward. The key to that courage is God’s timeless promise, “I will be with you.”

We never want to settle for God’s promises without his presence. It’s God’s presence that sets us apart and makes life worth it. Like Moses, we hunger for God’s glory more than for anything that he could bless us with.

In our spiritual insecurity we often default to the question, “Who am I that God would call me or bless me?” But the promise of God to be with us changes the equation. It’s not who we are but who He is in all of his sufficiency.