The Perfecting Church

Every day we make a myriad of decisions which impact our destiny. The mechanisms and parameters we employ to arrive at these decisions affect every area of our lives. As ambassadors of the Kingdom of Heaven, our God-King does not want us to walk through life making our decisions according to any current cultural, familial or national parameters or appetites, but He desires and requires that we Wal...

We live in a time and age that puts so much emphasis on the individual and personal choice. Our focus on self tears at the very fabric of our design and human relationships. But God has called us together into something bigger than ourselves. And one of the keys to the eyes of our understanding being opened is the revelation of Us.

There are three sacred things that only the Heavenly Father can provide for us. Apart from them our lives are filled with disorder, inadequacy and purposelessness. And there are three significant things that our earthly fathers can provide for us that stabilize and advantage us in this world. We’re all in need of the Father Factor.

The hardships and suffering we experience in this world have a purpose that works for us and extends far beyond us. Our response to hardships and suffering shape us and set a stage for God’s glory and for God’s judgement to be revealed. God’s glory is revealed when we respond His way, with His words and His intent. God’s judgement is revealed to those who resist and refuse His way, words and inten...

So much of the culture wars of our day are about responsibility and culpability. Who’s at fault for the injustices and inequities that plague this world? Some lean towards seeing everything as a matter of individual responsibility — if they hadn’t been there, if they hadn’t done that, if they had worked harder or been smarter. Others lean towards seeing everything as systemic and structural — the...

God is generous, God is just and equitable and God is our advocate. Biblical justice is the overflow of God’s character into our lives, our practices and our social structures. The follower of Jesus is called to be an advocate, one who stands against unjust, ungodly practices and systems that undermine the wellbeing and opportunities for flourishing in the lives of others. To be a follower of Jesu...

Pentecost Sunday - May 23rd, 2021

Justice in the eyes of God is not about us or anyone else getting what they deserve. Justice in God’s eyes is about us getting what He intended. Biblical justice is connected to the very character of God and its outworking in our everyday lives. If we are going to live justly and promote God’s brand of justice, we will answer the call to see our neighbor as those who bear His image and not our own...

For some, Mother’s Day is an opportunity to celebrate mom and our gratitude for her special place in our lives. For others, it’s a reminder of what they’ve lost or never had. To honor these intricately faceted perceptions of motherhood, we’ll host an up-close and personal panel discussion with women who’ll share their insights of A Legacy of Motherhood.

We all have felt dishonored by others in some form or fashion and instinctively want punishment for those who have hurt us. God wants to entrust us with greater grace and power. He wants to collaborate with us to execute His judgments and His justice in the world. But He will not trust us with greater power if we can not trust Him with our offenses.

What the world calls justice is typically not justice at all. It’s just vengeance carried out for us by someone else. Justice is often defined and described in terms of vengeance — they got what they deserved. But justice is not simply about them getting what they deserve. Justice is about us all getting what God intended. Justice, unlike vengeance, has two sides — a punitive side and a restorativ...

The popular chant of so many protests and marches echos one being shouted from heaven right now — No justice. No peace. The difference is, heaven is longing for a justice and peace that doesn’t flow from the source of human vengeance, courts or laws. Heaven is shouting for a justice and peace that flows from the throne of God and the veins of Jesus. No justice. No peace.

If you’ve been deceived, manipulated, abused, shamed or hurt by someone, the instinct is to strike back. We want them to feel what we felt, lose what we lost, experience what we experienced. But the truth is they can’t give us back what we lost or feel what we’ve felt. We want it all back — but they can’t give it to us. They don’t have it and they never did.

Jesus’ first disciples were made part and privy to the greatest plot in human history. The plan of God to lift mankind out from under the eternal sentence of sin and death over our lives. It still remains God’s intent to use us in this — the most significant restoration project in the history of creation. But the same obstacles that stood opposing them in the first century, stands opposing us now...

Good Friday: Seven Last Sayings of Jesus

The long awaited moment had come. Jesus, revealing Himself as Messiah to the city of Jerusalem and all gathered for the Passover celebration. They welcomed and made room for the King! But they pushed Him to the cross when His deliverance didn’t look like what they’d imagined and when His Kingdom wasn’t the Empire for which they’d longed.

So much of what we do today is a response to what was done to us in the past. It may sound over simplified, but we rehearse what they have done to us or we rehearse what Jesus has done for us. When we rehearse what they’ve done, we ultimately become the very thing we despise. But when we rehearse what He’s done, our lives increasingly become more than we could ever imagine.

In the Garden of Eden, Satan went to work planting seeds and causing division in the first family, our spiritual ancestors. He’s been at work ever since, planting destructive seeds in us too. We keep giving ourselves a pass when we don’t do what we’re feeling and rehearsing. But not doing what we want is not the same as doing what God desires.

Vengeance is one of the few things that God tells us not to do as He does. God is love and He calls us to love. God is generous and He calls us to generosity. God is merciful and He calls us to be merciful. God is holy and He call us to holiness. But vengeance is God’s alone. Yet, like the tree in the midst of the garden of Eden, it’s one of the things we find ourselves obsessed with. We must not...

Syncretism is the reckless blending of different often opposing views and beliefs into one new belief. Syncretism is deadly and it destroys the people of God. It destroys the flock of God. Jesus was diagnosing and prescribing a cure for the syncretism that was threatening to make His work ineffective in the hearts and lives of His disciples. We need the same diagnosis and prescription today. Are w...

If you look closely at what we do, you will see a story revealing what we really want. Our wants and desires drive our lives and push us towards our choices. Typically all we want is the thing we could never seem to get. But what we do to get what we want, makes all the deference in our lives and this world. The question is not what will we do? The real question is what do we want?

Jesus demonstrates the power of one with His life. He leaves heaven and willingly lays down His life to rescue and redeem our lives. Too often we’re afraid and unwilling to lay down what we value. We too are called to give ourselves, to collaborate with God and extend His Kingdom one obedient step at a time. We are called to extend God’s Kingdom over building our empires.

Jesus called a little child into the conversation when His disciples asked Him, “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?” The people with child like faith may not look like much to the natural eye, but their level of trust, dependence and availability to God is what makes way for His glory — it allows God’s greatness to shine through their lives.

Jesus’ disciples had the desire for greatness, but they didn’t know what greatness was or how to achieve it. God alone defines greatness and He calls us to it, through collaboration with Him in childlike faith. This means, there will be times when we have to let go of what man calls good enough to embrace what God calls great.

One thing that hinders many from living with a child like dependence on God, is believing we have to look out for ourselves. The truth of the matter is we aren’t as capable of looking out for ourselves as we believe we are. In fact, looking out for number one is the very thing that keeps us from being the one. If only we knew and trusted how closely heaven watches and keeps us, we could take our r...