"Who Rules In Your Life?"

There are a lot of ways you can answer that question, but one thing you can't say is, "No one rules in my life." We may not think much about having a king in our lives, but each of us has one. It can be a person. It can be a goal. It can be a habit. It can be a job. Most often we make ourselves the king of our lives. Whatever it may be, our king is what dominates our thoughts, time, money and energy. It is what drives our lives.

Two thousand years ago on a day we call "Palm Sunday" Jesus Christ entered Jerusalem and made the audacious claim not only to be a king, but THE King of every human being. Have you thought of Jesus as your King? Most often we look at him as our Savior, dying on the cross for our sins. But that same Jesus rose from the dead. He lives not only to forgive us, but to lead us to heaven. That means we are following him as the King of our lives.

Join us this Sunday (April 1) at 10:00 am. Together let's think seriously about who has been ruling in our lives and what it would mean for Jesus to take over that role once and for all.

"Is God Dead?"

Those words were emblazoned on the April 8, 1966 cover of Time magazine. The accompanying article is a bleak testimony to the skepticism and confusion of modern humanity. A summary of the piece might well be, “About the only thing we know about God is that we don’t know anything.” The idea that God is dead, that we human beings really don’t need him might appear to be brazenly bold and edgy, but the consequences of such thinking is the crisis of despair which is saturating all layers of our society. Without God, without morals, without purpose, people have entertained themselves to a spiritual wasteland in which they can discover neither purpose nor contentment.

The laser light of Jesus Christ is the piercing, definitive solution for the existential fog created by the “God is Dead” movement. He leaves no doubt God is very much alive and well and that he wants human beings to enjoy everything that they are missing today in the next life. There is hope! There is a future! And the best news is that God offers this hope and future to everyone. Join us this Sunday (March 25) at 10:00 am. Experience the God who is alive; experience the life he wants for you!

When Giving Up Means Getting It All

This Sunday (March 18) at 10:00 am we are going to be studying a conversation Jesus had with a young man. Here’s how it went:

17 As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
18 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. 19 You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.’”
20 “Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”
21 Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
22 At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.
23 Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”
24 The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” (Mark 10:17-25)

Throughout the centuries people have wondered about the same questions that are likely in your mind:

“Do I have to give away all my money to be a Christian?”
“Is it worth it?”
“Is anybody going to get to heaven?

One thing is for certain, Jesus is calling his followers to a level of commitment far higher than most think necessary. During these 40 days of Lent it is good for us to study the hard teachings of Christ and ask ourselves the same hard questions he put to the people who followed him when he walked this earth. Lent is a time of repentance and spiritual growth. And we can only grow if we understand what kind of faith and life Jesus is calling us to. The young man in the story walked away sad. That was the biggest mistake of his life. No matter what you have. No matter who you are. Nothing in this world is worth keeping if it is an obstacle to Jesus being your Lord and Savior. When it comes to eternity, we get it all through Christ when we give up trying get to him on our terms.

When We Don't Need Cemeteries We Won't Need a Savior

Have you purchased your cemetery plot yet? That question probably caught you by surprise. Why in the world would anyone want to even think about that? And yet, there is absolutely no doubt that each one of us is, at some time or other, going to need a place to be buried. Strangely, that is the way we human beings are about death. We love to watch it on TV and in movies but when it comes to honestly facing death in our own lives, then we pretend it doesn't even exist.

A great thinker of the past said, "We pay our doctors enormous sums of money to keep us from dying. We pay our entertainers even more money to keep us from thinking about death." It's probably because we feel totally helpless in the face of death which causes us to react to it this way. But as we all know, ignoring death doesn't make it go away.

Jesus Christ said a lot of things that people took the wrong way or didn't understand. One of those statements was, "Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?" Even if the meaning of his words may not be completely crystal clear to us, one thing is for sure, Jesus has a whole different view of death than we do. Instead of ignoring death, Jesus Christ took on death. That's the meaning of his coming to this earth. That is the explanation of his allowing himself to be crucified. Jesus said that physical death is inevitable, but it doesn't need to be ignored or feared. Because of Jesus Christ, there is going to be a day when there won't be a need for cemeteries. But until then, we all need a Savior from death. Join us this Sunday (March 4) at 10:00 am to hear more about that Savior.