James 1:2 - “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy.” (NLT)

Christian tradition holds that James, the half-brother of Jesus, wrote the book of James in the New Testament. The book is a letter written in prose discourse, likely around 62 C.E., from Jerusalem, where James was a leader in the church. The book's author is identified as "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ" in James 1:1.  The book focuses on practical action in faith and encourages readers to live consistently with what they have learned from Christ.

This month we are going to go through the book of James each Sunday and walk through what James is attempting to remind us of. What did James know about Jesus that provides such insight into how we should be living our lives?

James does such a good job of framing everyday issues for us. He reminds us that trials bring patience and wisdom (James 1:2-7). He issues a challenge to do God’s Word, don’t just speak it (James 1:22-25). James reminds us that faith without works is dead (James 2:14-17). James continues by telling us to watch our tongue, for it could be our death or blessing (James 3:8-10). We hear a clear message to resist the devil and submit to the Lord (James 4:7-8). James reminds us of how temporary things are and that we should focus on now, not tomorrow (James 4:13-15). James gets towards the end and makes sure that we know that we serve as one for the Lord (James 5:13-16).

My prayer for us through the month of September is that we look at the book of James as a sort of owners manual helping us to understand the human condition and know our place within this great big story of eternity and God through the lens of Jesus Christ. I hope that we will be reminded to live a life that looks like Jesus everyday, not just when we think people are looking.
- Pastor Mike

2 Corinthians 5: 6-7 - “6 So we are always confident, even though we know that as long as we live in these bodies we are not at home with the Lord. 7 For we live by believing and not by seeing.” (NLT)

Faith can be a tricky subject. What is faith? How do we get it? Can we exercise it? Why do we need it? Hebrews 11: 1-2 answers some of this for us. “Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see. 2 Through their faith, the people in days of old earned a good reputation.” When we find ways in which to exercise, or demonstrate our faith, people will see it.

For the month of August we are going to take a look at ways in which we can demonstrate our faith, by taking steps that will help us to become what God desires for us to become. We will be looking at four main topics of Love, Humility, Courage, and Perseverance. These four actions are not the only ways in which we can demonstrate our faith in God. It might look like honesty or integrity. It could even look like willingness and discipline. There are many ways in which we take steps in our walk with God that allow us to express our faith, and make it come alive.

In Genesis 5: 23-24 we find the story of Enoch. “23 Enoch lived 365 years, 24 walking in close fellowship with God. Then one day he disappeared, because God took him.” God has always desired a relationship with us that looks like that of two people walking toward a destination. Enoch was one of those who demonstrated such a relationship. Jesus would then demonstrate a similar relationship as He walked along the road to Emmaus with two of his disciples. As we take steps to demonstrate our faith we are walking alongside a God who loves us, and cares deeply for us. God begins to come alive as we walk side by side with Him.

My prayer for us through the month of August is that we will begin to walk much closer with God. I pray that we will begin to learn how to take steps with God as we join Him in this life here on earth. He desires to be with us now. He is not waiting for us to get to heaven one day. How can we begin to walk in faith, taking small steps, so that the world will see our relationship with God?

- Pastor Mike

Galatians 5:13 - “13 For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love.“ (NLT)

The month of July brings us fireworks, cookouts, and swimming pools. We find ourselves indulging in all the pleasures of this life and yet when the month comes to an end, we are still left with all that we are and all that we have. Is it wrong to celebrate our freedom as a citizen of the United States? Not at all! We are honored and privileged to live in the greatest country in the world where we have a freedom that most of the world does not.

Does that mean we should use our freedom to live however we want? When Paul is writing to the church in Galatia they not only are struggling with identifying as followers of Christ, they are also struggling with Paul’s authority as an apostle of Jesus Christ.  In chapter 3 Paul gets to the heart of their problem. The Galatians sought to be justified by the law of Moses. Paul assures them that justification comes to people by faith in Jesus Christ, not by their works under the Law.

Our freedom is never defined but what we have the capacity to do. Our freedom is defined by what we allow ourselves to become. We can choose to live in the United States and abuse all of our freedoms and it may bring us riches, fame, and material possessions, but it will never save our souls. When we choose to begin to live in the freedom of being a disciple of Jesus Christ, we unlock the potential to become all that God desires us to be. The great theologian and professor Maxie Dunnam once wrote, “One, freedom requires discipline; two, freedom requires love; and three, the freedom of Christ sets the stage and provides the power for our becoming all that God intends us to become.”

My prayer for us through the month of July is that we choose freedom in Christ. I pray that we will choose to become all that Jesus intended us to be when He chose to lay down His life to save us. He gave us a purpose, and yet also a freedom to choose. What will you choose this month with your freedom? Service? Study? Loving your neighbor?
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- Pastor Mike

2 Timothy 3:16 - “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.” (NLT)

We have just come through a powerful season of Holy Spirit power and conviction within our lives. God has awakened something in many of us that we thought was dormant, dead, and gone. God has a way of bringing dry bones back to life (Ezekiel 37:1-10). God utilizes all things to bring us back to an awareness of who He is and what He means to our lives.

Biblical teaching has taken place for thousands of years. From the first disciples to our current day, God has been using Holy Scripture to bring His Word to life in front of us. His Word teaches us of what is true and helps us to place that truth within our lives so that we will understand and know, not just about God, but WHO God is and the importance of His presence in our daily lives.

In the Scriptures we find history, we find poetry, we find the greatest love story ever told, and we find a God that desires to be in relationship with us. The Bible is our blueprint on how to live in a fallen and broken world. God helps us to see His character and the Holy Spirit opens our hearts to hear His voice and understand His message for us.

Have you ever had a moment where you read a passage of Scripture and it seems to mean something different than it ever has for you? That is the Spirit of God awakening your soul. God moves within our lives through the text, and it is important for us to know it, experience it, and put it into practice.
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My prayer for us through the month of June is that we lean into what God is desiring for us to become. We find ourselves focused upon His voice. We will dig into the Scriptures and find God speaking to us directly. I hope that you are ready to learn with your mind, and open your heart to God’s teaching!
- Pastor Mike

John 15:16 - “You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name." - NLT
 
Have you ever wondered why God would create human beings? He gave human beings the distinct resemblance of Himself when He created us in “His image”. God can be found to be a relational being, and so I believe that God created human beings so that He would not be lonely. His entire character through the Bible can be found as a loving Father, who cares deeply for His children.

We just finished with Easter and now we enter into a season of Eastertide that will last until the day of Pentecost. So how do we continue to celebrate Easter? We look for the reason why Jesus died and rose from the grave. My answer would be that God wanted to give us a fruitful life while we are here on earth. So what does that look like?

God has called us. He has allowed the Holy Spirit to speak to our hearts and minds so that we will be able to understand Him, hear from Him, and learn more about Him. Jesus came so that we might understand His great for us, and to be known as different because of His saving grace. God chose each of us for a special relationship. One that looks like a healthy plant. He called to us, saved us, and now it is up to us to produce lasting fruit.

When we are found to be obeying God, following where He leads us, through the power of the resurrected Jesus, we will begin to understand what it means to produce lasting fruit. Just like a plant, we must endure the storms of life, keep our faith strong, and live a resurrected life.
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It won’t be easy. It will require us to maintain our relationship with God, even through the most difficult of circumstances. As we stay faithful through our troubles, God can be found to be everything that He has promised us He would be. And when He finds us to be producing that lasting fruit, even in our turmoil, He will provide for us. This month, I pray that we will remember and learn what it means to live a resurrected life!
- Pastor Mike

Exodus 12:14 - “This is a day to remember. Each year, from generation to generation, you must celebrate it as a special festival to the Lord. This is a law for all time.” - NLT
 
We are getting close to the end of what is known as Eastertide. It would be the forty days after Easter Sunday in which we are to remember the risen Jesus and what it all means for our lives. This culminates on Pentecost Sunday in which we are reminded of the Holy Spirit and how the “helper”, the “advocate”, the very Spirit of God came to the disciples.

What does it mean for us to have that power of the Holy Spirit with us? Do we even understand that the Holy Spirit is God and He is always with us? When we are reminded of this great gift of God, we can come to know what it is He is asking of us, what it is that He is desiring us to do, and where He is wanting us to go.

Moses was in a similar position but did not have the Holy Spirit. Moses had the active presence of God with him, and he struggled through. God desired for the people of Israel to never forget what it was that He saved them from. In Exodus we see God desiring that the people He saved never forget Him and what He did in saving them. This is why we have things we call traditions, sacraments, anything that reminds us of the great redemptive work of God.

This month we are going to look at who we are, what God desires of us, and what is important to Him. We are going to look at the importance of the sacraments and remembering God and what He has done with our lives. We are going to look at the power of prayer, and the way in which the Holy Spirit is a gift that can empower us to handle any circumstance that we might face on this earth!
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My prayer is that we will all grow deeper in knowledge, but even more deeper in faith and belief. I pray that we would become a people that never want to forget the goodness of God. I pray that we become a people that would engage with Him, so that we can be more like Jesus and shine the grace of God into a world that so desperately needs to see Him!
- Pastor Mike

Ephesians 3: 10-11, “10 God’s purpose in all this was to use the church to display his wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. 11 This was his eternal plan, which he carried out through Christ Jesus our Lord.” - NLT
 
We just finished going through the Christmas season. This is a time of remembering that we love and serve a God who is willing to become one of us and suffer for us. The God of all creation was willing to participate on this earth with us and, within the incarnation, made a way for us to participate in a life of love and mercy with Himself. As we participate in this life of love with a God who spared no expense to be with us, we are then encouraged to share that same loving fellowship with other people. This is how and why the church, the body of Christ, was built.

As we embark on a new year, I am prayerful that the Jesus we know will become known to others and we will be found by those who meet Him as people who are leading with love. Because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, God wants all people to understand the mystery of man’s redemption. Every human being has been given the opportunity to know the Savior of the world, and it should be our hearts desire and passion to display that grace-filled salvation with them.

The church should be a place in which the broken, lost, hurting, and lonely are finding a loving and forgiving God who transforms them into something new. This new person should find themselves attracting attention, and for good reasons not bad ones. As a person comes to know this love and forgiveness they become like a beacon of hope and love to those who are also seeking the restoration power found within Christ Jesus. If we are leading with love, everyday, there should be no doubt that Jesus is leading our lives into something new.
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Becoming more like Jesus isn't an overnight event, even after we're born again. No, it's a lifelong struggle. We grudgingly give up ourselves a bit at a time. We want God to make us more like Jesus up to the very moment we leave this earth. When our physical life is lost, then our true, authentic life will begin. May we become people who are leading with love in 2024!  
- Pastor Mike

Colossians 2: 6-7 “6 And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him. 7 Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.” NLT

A quick internet search and you can find several Scripture references that are tied to the concept of thanksgiving. We see in the book of Revelation that heaven is a place in which all beings give praise and thanksgiving to a good God. Revelation 7: 11-12 “11 And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living beings. And they fell before the throne with their faces to the ground and worshiped God. 12 They sang, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and strength belong to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

If praising God with thanksgiving is good enough for eternity, how great could it make our lives here on earth? In an article from the Mayo Clinic I found that gratitude and thanksgiving can be powerful for our health. “Expressing gratitude is associated with a host of mental and physical benefits. Studies have shown that feeling thankful can improve sleep, mood and immunity. Gratitude can decrease depression, anxiety, difficulties with chronic pain and risk of disease.”

Thanksgiving is not just a day in November where we celebrate the Indians and Pilgrims coming together for a moment of peace and a meal. Thanksgiving literally means that you are giving gratitude to someone or something that is worthy of goodness. Our God is definitely worthy of our gratitude.

As we walk through the month of November, leading into the Christmas holiday, let us realize that we are indeed followers of a God who loves us, who has given us every good gift, and is worthy of our gratitude. Let us not forget what the Psalmist says in Psalm 95: 1-2, “1 Come, let us sing to the Lord! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. 2 Let us come to him with thanksgiving. Let us sing psalms of praise to him.” I am prayerful and hopeful that our month of cultivating gratitude will improve our spiritual lives, as well as our physical lives!
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- Pastor Mike

Matthew 19: 26 “26 Jesus looked at them intently and said, “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But with God everything is possible.” NLT

In this passage Jesus is explaining to the disciples how difficult it is for the rich young man to get into heaven. He uses the illustration of a camel going through the eye of a needle. This could have been an actual needle or the secondary gate in Jerusalem. The "Eye of the Needle" has been claimed to be a gate in Jerusalem, which opened after the main gate was closed at night. A camel could not pass through the smaller gate unless it was stooped and had its baggage removed. Either way, it was very difficult for this to happen, yet Jesus claims God’s power to do the impossible.

Have we, the followers of Christ, forgotten what makes God so amazing and powerful? Have we not seen the signs and wonders because we are simply content with our lives? God is still God. He is still the Creator of all things and the Ruler of the entire universe!

In 1 Chronicles 29:11, David can be found praising the incredible power and might of a God who had delivered him time and time again. “Yours, O Lord, is the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty. Everything in the heavens and on earth is yours, O Lord, and this is your kingdom. We adore you as the one who is over all things.” Maybe we have lost our adoration of an all powerful God because we simply do not see Him in that way.

This month I pray that we will begin to examine the ways in which God is still powerful. I pray that we will learn to look for the power to be shown to us in our lives. I pray that we have the capacity and ability to lay our own thoughts and ideas about who God is aside, and begin to see Him as He truly is.

The Scriptures continue to speak of His glory and power. Have we missed it? Are we looking for it? Romans 1:20, “For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.” What is our excuse? Let the power of God be seen this month!
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- Pastor Mike