What part of your life are you trying to control instead of letting God have control?  What sin are you holding on to?  What addiction are you unwilling to give up?  What person have you chosen not to forgive?  What part of the Bible are you waiting for God to change His mind about because you don’t happen to agree with it? 

"Be still and know that I am God," . Do you yearn for that kind of deep, long-lasting peace? If we're being honest, we have a hard time putting this concept into practice. We rarely live with the conviction that God is God and we are not. Joins as we begin this new series!

Learn from the past but don’t let the past define you!  You have the ability to decide to leave the past behind once you make up your mind.  There is enough pain in life without one dragging all the pain of the past into one’s future.  Release the past so the past can release you!  

As a parent, have you ever responded to one of your children to something you saw them do and ask, “What were you thinking?”  If we were to pause for just a moment and look back at our life, I am sure there was someone that thought that same thing of us in some of our decisions.  And looking back, our decision doesn’t even make sense to us!  “What was I thinking” we ask!  

Life has enough unpreventable pain; even if you were to make all the right decisions in life, one is still going to experience some disappointment and pain because some things are going to go wrong (we live in a sin-cursed world).

There is a great misunderstanding that is puzzling: it is the mistaken belief that in order to have more, we must hold on tightly. EX: if we are going to have more money, we must keep more or hold on to it tightly. However, an open hand represents an open spirit; and when we have an open spirit, some of the money in our hands will get away, but when we have a closed hand, nothing can get in. For anything to get in, you must have an open hand.

Some people never see opportunities. Everything is a calamity; everything is an obstacle. For them the days are evil—and that’s why there are no opportunities.  In the journey of life, they find excuses instead of opportunities.

You and I will have our priorities, but we have options when it comes to those priorities. We can allow the world to set our priorities by what is popular and important to the world. It is the ambition to pursue everything that appeals to you, to the flesh

Jesus upheld the standards of God’s perfect holiness but made it clear that there was only one person present who could have judged the woman. Only one who was sinless.

There is a universal feeling of thankfulness that we all experience.  We all feel thankful at moments in our life.  When good things happen or we are finishing up a season that has been rough, we are thankful. 

“One can be lost through rebellion and one can be lost through religion!” (David Marvin) The Father loved both of his Sons, the rebellious and the religious son. Neither son really knew the heart of their Father.

Have you ever heard someone talking about someone you never knew, but because of their relationship with that person and the stories they shared, you felt like you knew that person?

Have you ever had a “dark night of the soul”?  Have you ever looked around at your life and your situation and seen nothing but, metaphorically speaking, of course, a valley of dead and dry bones?  Imagine Ezekiel’s situation.

Sheep are not particularly bright animals. Sheep follow the crowd and don’t think of the consequences. It is not that they occasionally wander off, it is their pattern. It is predictable and expected. They are easily distracted and easily led astray.

There is nothing in this world can offer us that is as good as what God provides for us.  This is why God is constantly calling us back to himself when it is the natural tendency of our flesh to drift away from him.  God is faithful!  Even though we may fail, God never fails us!  God is full of compassion!

In his early period as a prophet, he denounced his people for their sins and corruption. After the destruction of Jerusalem in 586, however, Ezekiel became the consoler and comforter of the exiles, holding out to them the promise of a return to the homeland and the restoration of the Temple and of the throne of David.

Ezekiel was a Levite and destined to be a priest in the temple of the Lord.  He had been training for his work but at the age of 25, he was taken into captivity into Babylon by King Nebuchadnezzar.  A Levite would train for his work until the age of 30, then at that age, they would start their priestly duties.  It was five years into the captivity and at the age of thirty that God would begin to give Ezekiel visions and prophetic words for Israel. 

Israelites during their captivity were asking, where is God? Through this time of judgment, God would keep sharing threads of hope of how he would restore the nation of Israel; how he would take their heart of stone and turn it into a heart of flesh;

Jesus Comforts His Disciples

1“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God a ; believe also in me.

Obedience is a bedrock for living a life of faith!  Scripture also tells us that obedience is better than sacrifice.  The sacrifice that one makes when living in disobedience is the broken relationship with one’s Heavenly Father.