What does success look like to you? Perhaps before you could describe it, how would you define success? It seems like all of us want success. With everything we’ve talked about over the last seven weeks, Peter gives us very practical handles on what success looks like at church and at home.
Suffering affects all of us. Some more than others. What if suffering was more than just a good thing or bad thing but a necessary thing? Peter helps us to expect suffering, understand suffering, and prepare for suffering because it’s coming.
Peter provides us clarity on God’s plan for the home. God has created men and women with different roles. As men and women live out their roles, it’s best for kids and the church. It’s clear that the love in the home overflows into the church. The church is a picture of the home.
Politics. It just means the way we make decisions as we live together. Politics is much more than just a definition. It brings emotions, avoidance, and debates. Peter wrote this while living under an emperor. As we live under two major political parties, what if there was more than just a donkey and an elephant?
Have you experienced family drama? It can be something that you laugh at later or something that leaves irreparable collateral damage. Peter helps us understand that our adoption brings us into God’s family. Our church is made up of other adopted sons and daughters of God. We’ll find best practices on how to best treat one another.
Have you ever said, “You just never know. I might need that.”? Preparation is important. Peter provides us a way to prepare our minds so that we can think clearly, act differently, see ourselves appropriately, and love our church correctly.
Ever receive an inheritance? Maybe know someone who has? Perhaps a better question is do you plan to give an inheritance to someone? Peter reminds us that we have an inheritance as adopted sons and daughters of God. Our future home is a place where we are completely safe, secure, and satisfied.
A couple decades after the Resurrection, Peter writes a letter to encourage local churches that there’s more to come! Looking forward to our true home can empower us to live Jesus-centered lives in our temporary home. We’ll see a tale of two homes: Earth 1 and Earth 2.
Jesus could not have been any clearer: God measures our commitment to him against our behavior, compassion, and generosity toward others. Love toward others is the appropriate response to God’s love toward us.
Volunteering makes a difference. When you serve with a nonprofit, you help them accomplish more and communicate value and dignity to those they serve.
Participating churches partner with exceptional nonprofits doing valuable work in communities here and around the world. When you make a financial donation to Be Rich, every penny supports the needs and efforts of these organizations. Your contribution will fund projects that are game changers for our nonprofits and life changers for the people they serve. Together, we can make a difference!
Would you believe me if I told you that you are a manager of extraordinary influence and unprecedented opportunity? This is true for all of us. All of us are managers of extraordinary influence and unprecedented opportunity. You became a manager because someone invited you to follow Jesus. Aren’t you glad someone invited you?
This has just been an observation but those who are less and less in community are the ones seem to experience more and more chaos in their life. They have been their own true north. We need God’s Word to be our true north and we need each other on this journey.
When it comes to God and faith, everyone has doubts. Too often, those doubts rob us of the potential for a relationship with God. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Believe it or not, your doubt can be a bridge to deeper relationship.
Most people are mostly honest with themselves. Unfortunately, relationships that are mostly honest are mildly healthy. Our most healthy relationships are our most honest relationships. Is God okay with full honesty? In this message, we unpack an overview of King David’s collection of Psalms to discover that God doesn’t just tolerate our honesty, he celebrates it.
The Greatest Generation. Baby Boomers. Generation X. Millennials. Generation Z. Each generation is distinct from those that came before and those that come after. They have different priorities and different experiences. They see the world differently. It’s easy for the generations to live in conflict and competition. But what is our responsibility to the generations that come after us?
The blood of Jesus breaks down barriers. By creating barriers, the implication is Jesus’ death and resurrection isn’t enough. When we take the Lord’s Supper, we are saying that Jesus’ death is enough and it broke down the wall of hostility that I have towards people not like me.
What does Jesus have to teach us about it and knowing that, how can we move forward? There’s a difference between reacting and responding. Typically when we react, it’s emotionally driven without much thought as to how to be a part of the solution. Typically when we respond, it’s data-driven with thought as to how to be a part of the solution. The intent with this series is not to attempt to answer any questions or tackle topics like defunding law enforcement, reparations, tearing down monuments...
If your money could talk, it would say, “I’m easy to keep up with, but I’m difficult to catch up with. Keep up or you’ll be playing catch up. Keep up with me and I’ll keep up with you.”
Are you mastering your money or being mastered by it? Maybe it’s time to flip the script. Instead of striving to have enough money to satisfy a me-first appetite, Jesus encouraged his listeners to have an others-first approach.
If our money could talk, what would it tell us? You might be shocked to find that what our money would say is pretty close to what Jesus did say—and what we should still consider today.
Many of us have an uneasy relationship with prayer. It’s as if we believe we have this huge prayer deficit and we’ll never catch up. There are times in our lives when prayer comes easy: when we need to make a pivotal decision or when we’ve hit a tough stretch. In these seasons, prayer comes naturally. But eventually life settles in and we go back to our normal routines. For most of us, prayer is something we know we should do more of and so we feel guilty. What would happen if we prayed more in ...
You have undoubtedly heard it said that time flies. Unfortunately, there are no “do-overs” when it comes to time. The past is in the past. The good news? At the time this message was delivered on June 14, there were still over 163 days left in 2020! While you can’t change the past, you can use your remaining time to make a difference in your life and the lives of those around you. None of us is promised another day, so leverage the time you have with purpose.
Remember January? The new year resolutions and wishes can seem a long way away. And yet, it’s too not too late to finish strong. It’s only July. It’s only Halftime. Before we go any further into the second half of the year, the writer of Hebrews gives us a great perspective which leads to 4 great questions to ask at halftime. These questions not only prepare us for the rest of the series but the second half of 2020.
God wants me happy? God wants me to enjoy my life? Above all else, God only wants good things to happen in your life, and God never wants anything bad to happen in your life.
This is one of the most relevant and culturally believed lies. This is commonplace in our neighborhoods, in our jobs, and in our families. You may of heard it. You may of said it. You may even believe it but all over the world today people say this: “It doesn’t matter what you believe about God as long as you are sincere.” We’ll find out that God actually has a lot to say about this and it’s not what most of us want to hear.
The Bible did not create Christianity. Christianity is the result of an event (the resurrection) that created a movement (the church) that produced sacred and reliable texts that were collected and bound into a book (the Bible). But how do we approach not being at peace with everything we read in the Bible? Paul—the apostle, Pharisee, author, preacher, and church planter—offers us clarity and confidence to move forward.
“In the beginning. . . .” can be a loaded phrase—one that forces us into debate and doubt. But maybe we’re missing the point of Genesis 1:1—a point Moses made to a world where the violence and injustice of the gods justified and legitimized the violence and injustice of human rulers. Moses introduced a radically different, unparalleled, and untested worldview.
The cross satisfies God’s anger with what we do and it demonstrates His love for us because of who we are. In our English language we only have one word for love, in the Greek language in which our New Testament was written there were 7 words for love. Contrary to the English language, not all love is the same and good.
The cross satisfies God’s anger with what we do and it demonstrates His love for us because of who we are. We’ll discover that anger is the right emotion in the right moment and God had every reason to be angry. Perhaps we’ll fight the struggle to admit that we’re not good enough.
