The Book of Ezra - Coming Together To Do God's Work
God gives us the grace to see and repent of our sin. What does that look like – when we really begin to see it for what it is? What does it sound like – when we begin to turn from our sin and to cry out to God to deliver us and re-make us? […]
God receives broken, unworthy people. He runs to us, and He loves us. But this world hurts us and tries to tear us down. What will make it all better? What will give us the change and the power that we need? Where do we find answers and help? Is it on our own? Or […]
Seven chapters into the book, and Ezra finally shows up in the book that bears his name! His appearance tells us about what it looks like when God grabs hold of our lives to remake us and re-form us. Look to Ezra, and hunger for what he had – for what he had is what […]
Do you know what it feels like for things to be undone in your life? The frustration, the impatience…the shame? This text shows God completing His work, completing what He has promised to do. But these promises of completion go far beyond a physical temple – they even reach to you and me and to […]
Our God is gracious. He does not “rub our noses” in our mistakes. However, He does dialog with us, and He invites us to survey the results of what happens when we try to live life on our own, apart from Him. And then, because His loves us with a perfect, holy love, He invites […]
The spiritual attacks that we endure are because the enemy wants to keep us from where God wants to be – leaving behind false worship and experiencing the beauty and the reality of lives that are given over to the true worship God has for us. Ezra 4:24-5:2; Haggai 1:1-15
When God’s people start to be revived, the first one stirred up is our enemy – who will do anything to keep us from being the worshipping community God wants us to be. Having been warned of that, what do we need to know about our adversary and how he can be overcome? Ephesians 6:10-13
When God begins to move in His people to revive them and restore them to Himself, the first one stirred up is our enemy – who is defeated, but still dangerous. If we are seeking the restoring power of the Lord’s grace at this church, what opposition can we expect, and how can we overcome […]
As God saves us as individuals, He is making us part of worshipping community. That can be so beautiful, and so scary. What does it look like for us to find more and more of our story and our reality caught up in being a worshipping church together?
As God calls us back to the love relationship we have lost and wandered from, nothing more captures that love and that belonging than worship. Worship is where we engage with the truth of all that God has done for us. We are missing it in our lives, and we need to have true worship […]