Transforming Truth With Jeff Lyle

God’s mysterious providence has been worming slowly on behalf of Ruth and Naomi. He has moved on His own to cross Ruth’s path with the man who would eventually become her husband. God had done it all sovereignly and quietly. Now comes the moment where Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz all needed to do their part for God’s plan to unfold. This message reminds us that sometimes we can wait on God too long. Some...

Most Christians recognize that the Church at large stands in need of a revival from Holy Spirit. There is a lack of theological precision, spiritual power, and zealous passion among believers. The Church has turned lukewarm in most places. In some places there is potent, authentic revival taking place, but these hotspots of the Spirit are rare. In Part 1 of this message, we focus on what defines r...

There are appointed times when God is offering His people something beyond the norm. Awakening, breakthrough, advance, and revival are found all throughout the Bible, and it is always God’s desire to lead His people into “the more.” Yet many Christians and churches are seemingly stuck in the bog of status-quo, average, mundane Christianity. Is there something that God is waiting for from us before...

In the story of Ruth, we get to meet one of the most noble men in all of the Bible. There are not a large amount of verses dedicated to Boaz, but everything written of him is good. He stands as one of the clearest types of Christ in all of the Old Testament. In this message, Boaz is seen again as kind, caring, generous, and committed to providing for and protecting the Gentile widow named Ruth. In...

The life of faith is mysterious blend of human responsibility and divine providence. Scripture clearly states that believers proactively plan their steps…but that God divinely directs those pathways to fulfill His ultimate plans for us. This is where a providential intersection of Ruth’s decisions and God’s determination for her life occurs. In all of what happens in Ruth chapter two, we see belie...

One of the risks in living as a biblically informed and scripturally loyal Christian is that we become so familiar with what the Bible says about Jesus and His sufferings that we can end up being filled with the doctrine of the cross but empty of the emotion of the cross. We must not only theologically comprehend the journey of Jesus in His passion week, but we are meant to enter into a deeper rev...

In our generation of people living as influencers, seeking followings, and desiring to be a bigger and better version of themselves, Jesus Christ offers a different way to greatness. The way Up in the Kingdom has always been Down. Even two of Jesus’ closest followers once opposed this principle, which motivated Jesus to speak plainly about this non-negotiable Kingdom key. In our present day, few C...

It would have been amazing if at the moment of our justification from God we entered into a state of glorification with God. In glorification, the Christian will become fully whom God has destined the Christian to be. No pain. No sickness. No sorrow. And NO SIN. As Jesus-followers, we should long for the promised day of our perfecting. Until then, we will need to be prepared to make war - especial...

We are no strangers to seasons of deep heartbreak and loss as we follow Jesus. Heaven is the only place which is immune from sorrow, and none of us have arrived there yet. Since we cannot escape grief, we must learn how to respond to it as people in whom lives the Man of Sorrows who was, Himself, aquatinted with grief. When grief is not responded to in the Spirit, it will almost always become bitt...

When Naomi’s life fell apart after the death of her husband and sons, she had nearly no options for what would come next. In short time, she heard that the famine back home in Israel had ended. Naomi now had the option of returning home. But what of her two widowed daughters in law? This portion from the Book of Ruth reveals how some of life’s unglamorous decisions can actually lead to powerful de...

There are two dangerous ditches into which many Christians fall as they consider the nature and activity of demons. The first ditches is to disregard the demonic realm. They do not believe that there is any authority, power, or agendas that are facilitated by demons. These Christians are terribly, dangerously wrong. The other ditch that Christians fall into is the idea that a demon is behind every...

God’s people, who had almost zero knowledge of who He was or how He worked on their behalf, now needed to learn how to win. Though they had seen Him work miracles to separate them from enslavement in Egypt, they still had almost no real history with Him. They did not understand that there was tremendous power in the covenant He had made with their ancestors. To bring Israel out of the mindset of s...

The Bible often gives the first glimpse of famous people in the form of a footnote. The Book of Ruth, and the story of this well-known woman in the Bible, actually begins with barely mentioning her. Overshadowed by her mother in law, Naomi, Ruth hardly appears to be one for whom a book in the Bible should be named. That is just like the Lord! In the early verses of Ruth’s story, the focus is not u...

There is an aspect of the Kingdom wherein much growth is still needed by the Church. In our endlessly hostile world, has it occurred to you lately that Christians in many places are less like Jesus and more like the culture when it comes to how we treat those who are fragile, fallen, and failing? How do we treat the bruised and bent ones whose lives seem to be giving off more smoke than light? A f...

The enemy was furious when he became fully aware that God had taken his slaves from him and made them free. Pharaoh was not about to go down in humiliation without a fight. His pride and rage caused him to summon all of his forces to make one final run at those who once belonged to him. As it was in ancient Egypt with Pharaoh, so is it in our day with Satan. When an individual or a church begin to...

We have heard since childhood that God loves us and has a great plan for our lives. While those words are factual, they are certainly incomplete. The modern, American view of God having “a great plan” for our lives somewhat lends itself to us believing that God is committed to our lives being easy, prosperous, unhindered, and free of trouble. Nothing could be further from the truth. From the life...

When God has determined to move powerfully among His people, He usually employs methods that we ourselves would not choose. One of the great needs among Jesus-followers is to trust that God is always moving in multiple layers on our behalf. When He does not take us forward on the quickest, least complicated pathway, we need to train our instincts to consider the big picture. Truth be known, God’s...

There are two misunderstandings and misrepresentations of Christians that are stereotyped in America. The first is that Christians are pushovers who are to roll over and play dead, passive, weak and irrelevant. The other stereotype is that we are militant, dominating, suppressive and threatening. Neither of these misrepresentations are sourced in the bible. The fact is that the Church of Jesus is...

We live in a day where innumerable people are living to gain a following. Social media and other elements in our culture seek to train us that the more attention we receive from people, the more valuable we are in life. Because of this, our culture has become one of disastrous self-promotion. Boastful hearts present themselves in the most beautiful and powerful ways in order to gain the adoration...

There are two misunderstandings and misrepresentations of Christians that are stereotyped in America. The first is that Christians are pushovers who are to roll over and play dead, passive, weak and irrelevant. The other stereotype is that we are militant, dominating, suppressive and threatening. Neither of these misrepresentations are sourced in the bible. The fact is that the Church of Jesus is...

The reason why Psalm 51 is historically famous and frequently taught is because it is ALWAYS relevant. Who among us would dare to proclaim that they never sin? None of us live perfectly as Jesus-followers. We cannot truthfully say that every thought, word, and deed that flows from our lives meets the holy standard of sinless perfection. Though we have been made new in Christ, our flesh still rages...

As Jesus begins to release His sermon on the mount, He offers wisdom to His hearers in a form that is commonly referred to as the beatitudes. These are the core values of His heart and, therefore, Jesus’ Kingdom. While our tendency is to look at these beatitudes as rules to follow, that was not the intention of Jesus. He is simply stating these Kingdom principles as the things He values and what H...

There are moments in which Jesus doesn’t seem to us like…well, Jesus. Most of the times, when Jesus had to issue stern corrections or teach hard truths, we can find ourselves squirming. When Peter chose to defy something important that Jesus was teaching His closest disciples, the Savior took swift action to remind Peter that He was not only the Savior but also Peter’s MASTER. From that interactio...

The good news is that you are not alone in your desire to have a problem-free life. We all desire this. The bad news is that you will never experience this until your life on earth concludes. There is no getting around it: being a follower of Jesus does not immunize us in any way from problems and pain in life. For those who live by faith in the goodness of God, there is an offer to us from Heaven...