Our Mission To love all people at all times and lead them into a new life in Christ.
Our Vision To be a church that will be multicultural and generational, having a lasting impact on the people to whom we minister.
To see the gospel extend beyond the walls of our church through various outreaches.
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God, You have done great things God, You give grace to the weak And bless the brokenhearted With a song of praise to sing You reached down and lifted us up You came running, looking for us And now there’s nothing And no one beyond Your love You’re the overflow You’re the fountain of my heart Let Your mercy rain Let Your mercy rain on us You’re the faithful one When the world’s falling apart Let Your mercy rain Let Your mercy rain on us How deep, how wide, how long, how high is Your love … is Your love Oh, God
SIX WAYS TO STAY UNOFFENDED
From “Freedom” by Church of the Highlands
- Take the Lowest seat. Consider everyone more important than yourself. Put the needs of others before your own. Strive to please God, not yourself or others. Be a servant, and look to honor others rather than yourself.
- Always remain grateful. Gratitude changes our attitude by keeping us aware of God’s provision and blessings.
- Give others their freedom. Don’t try to control others. People need the freedom to make their own decisions. Sometimes they make good ones; sometimes they make bad ones. Either way, it is their decision.
- Make decisions that promote life in others. When someone offends you, it may seem natural to ignore that person or pay back wrong, but Jesus says there is a better way. Maintain a positive attitude toward them. Choose to speak words of life over them and do things that build them up. How they respond is up to them.
- Trust God to bring justice when an offense comes. Vengeance belongs to the Lord. Think about what it would be like to pay for your own sin, rather than Jesus taking care of it. None of us want what we really deserve. We’d rather have grace!
- Dedicate the time to the Lord. Refresh your spirit in prayer, Bible study, and fellowship with Jesus. God’s presence brings change.
What if you gave up your “right to be right” and instead chose to be unoffended, no matter the situation?
6 ESSENTIAL REASONS WHY WORSHIP MATTERS
Philip Wagner
1. Worship involves Surrender of Our Lives.
Romans 12:1 “I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God–this is your true and proper worship.”
2. Worship is Putting Our Focus on Him
True worship is based on the desire to honor God. It requires a personal revelation of God as found in the scriptures. Worship is not based on my likes or dislikes. It is not based on my personal preferences or priorities. It is a focus on Him.
3. Worship Involves ‘Getting Out of the Way’
We have to learn to remove our worries, our opinion, our questions and ourselves–so we can worship with appropriate honor. It’s letting go. Sometimes, we get in the way of our own experience of genuine worship.
4. Worship Involves Personal Sacrifice
Praise can be easier when times are good or we have had the big victory. It requires a sacrifice of our own feelings and fears so we can give Him the focus He deserves. “Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise–the fruit of lips that openly profess His name. Hebrews 13:15
5. We must worship in the Face of Pain and Loss
After King David’s baby died, the Bible tells us–
“Then David got up from the ground. After he had washed, put on lotions and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the Lord and worshipped. 2 Samuel 12:20
6. Worship is Celebrating Who God Is and What He Has Done
Psalm 100
BEAUTIFUL 10 LINES
Someone has written these 10 beautiful lines. Read and try to understand the deeper meaning of them.
***1. Prayer is not a “spare wheel” that you pull out when in trouble, but it is a “steering wheel” that directs the right path throughout life.
***2. Why is a car’s windshield so large and the rear-view mirror so small? Because our past is not as important as our future. So, Look ahead and move on.
***3. Friendship is like a book. It takes a few seconds to burn, but it takes years to write.
***4. All things in Life are temporary. If they are going well, enjoy them, they will not last forever. If they are going wrong, don’t worry, they can’t last forever either.
***5. Old friends are Gold! New friends are Deamonds! If you get a diamond, don’t forget the Godl! To hold a diamond, you always need a base of Gold!
***6. Often when we lose hope and think this is the end, God smiles from above and says, “Relax, sweetheart, it’s just a bend, not the end!”
***7. When God solves your problems, you have faith in His abilities. When God doesn’t solve your problems, He has faith in your abilities.
***8. A blind person asked God: “Can there be anything worse than losing eye sight?” He replied: “Yes, losing your vision!”
***9. When you pray for others, God listens to you and blesses them, and sometimes, when you are safe and happy, remember that someone has prayed for you.
***10. Worrying does not take away tomorrow’s troubles; it takes away today’s peace.
GUARD YOUR HEART
Joseph Prince
“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” Proverbs 4:23
The Bible tells us that the heart is where the issues of life spring forth. What we allow to enter our hearts will affect our thoughts, actions, and even our bodies. In other words, the condition of one’s heart determines the course of one’s life!
That is why Jesus, who bequeathed to us His peace, tells us, “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” (John 14:27) So if we want to walk in His peace and rest, we need to guard our hearts and not let them spiral into negative thoughts, worry, and fear. The Book of Wisdom also tells us that a peaceful and cheerful heart promotes health (Proverbs 17:22).
Beloved, there may be many things in our lives that we want to “guard”, such as our health or careers, but God wants us to guard our hearts above all else, and He will guard the rest!
SEEK FIRST JESUS’ RIGHTEOUSNESS
Joseph Prince
“Therefore do not worry, saying, “What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “What shall we wear?” For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to youl Matthew 5:31-33
I encourage you to take some time each day to get the revelation of your righteousness in Christ deep into your spirit. Meditate on it and declare it every day. It will put courage in your heart and bring an unshakable peace to your soul. It will energize your faith when you pray and give you a confident expectation to receive good things from your heavenly Father.
I believe that’s why our heavenly Father, in knowing the things that we need daily, tells us not to worry about them. What are we supposed to do then? We are to seek first “His (Jesus’) righteousness”–the righteousness that He has given us–and all the things that we need will be added to us.
When you know that your right standing with God always puts Him on your side, every fear will melt away like butter on a hot day. For if God is for you, who or what can successfully prevail against you (Romans 8:30)?
God Satisfies You with Long Life
Joseph Prince
“With long life will I satisfy him, and show him My salvation.” Psalm 91: 16
God’s heart is never for you to die prematurely, nor to live a life that is miserable. “With long life will I satisfy him and show him My salvation.” Psalm 91:16
This means that God not only wants you to have a long life, but He also wants you to have a satisfying life that is full of His peace, provision, and joy! In the verse, the word “salvation” is the Hebrew word Yeshua, the name of Jesus. So God will satisfy you with a long life that is full of Jesus and His grace!
Chronic illness, depression or a short life is not, and will never be, part of God’s plan for you. He wants you to experience a long, full life in which you walk in all the blessing of health, wholeness and provision that He has given you through Jesus!
LaVerne– We stand on this Word as truth. He wants us to have all His promises. Some of the promises we are believing to come to pass in our lives. But they are still promises of God.
DO NOT LET YOUR HEART BE TROUBLED
Joyce Meyer
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”
John 14:27
When life feels overwhelming, there’s only one place we can go for true, lasting peace–Jesus Christ. He is the “Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6) and the Bible says He’s our shelter in the storm (Isaiah 4:6).
I used to think that the way to have peace was to get rid of all my problems. It was a wonderful day when the Lord helped me realize that I could come to Him for peace in the midst of my problems.
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face;
And the things of the earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace.
When we take our cares and worries to God and spend time with His, we magnify Him or make Him “bigger” in our eyes. When we do that, all of our problems and concerns suddenly look smaller. Compared to God, they grow dim and insignificant. Your problems may be big, but they are not insignificant to God. But when you keep your eyes on Him, He gives you perspective.
When you feel worried and anxious, I know it’s easy to panic and allow fear to take over. That’s when you need to slow down, get still, and focus on Jesus. He’s always with you, available any time of the day for you to cry out to Him for His supernatural peace.
It Isn’t Your Love for God that Brings
You Victory Ed Elliot
It isn’t how much you love God that determines how victorious your life will be. It is knowing and believing in the love God has for you that will.
Paul told the Romans in Chapter 8, they could overcome everything life threw at them from demonic attacks to famine if they never forgot one powerful life-changing truth!
“Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us” Romans 8:37.
Paul didn’t say you will overcome all these things when you love God. He said you will conquer all these things in life because God loves you.
BELIEVE AND PRAISE HIM
By Joseph Prince
“Hear me, O Judah and you inhabitants of Jerusalem; Believe in the Lord your God, and you shall be established; believe His prophets, and you shall prosper.” And when he had consulted with the people, he appointed those who should sing to the Lord, and who should praise the beauty of holiness, as they went out before the army and were saying: “Praise the Lord, for His mercy endures forever.” 2 Chronicles 20:20-21
Today I want you to see two powerful keys to winning life’s battles from the account of King Jehospaphat. The first is to believe the Lord,and you shall be established and believe the prophets and you shall prosper. God doesn’t want you to live in a perpetual state of uncertainty, anxiety, stress, and fear.
The second is to go into battle singing praises to God. As the Israelites began to sing and praise, God caused confusion among the enemies’camps, and they utterly destroyed one another. Judah did not draw a single sword that day, but the battle was won.
When you are feeling down, overwhelmed, or fearful, worship Him with these words,”His mercy endures forever.” As you praise Him, He will “set ambushes” against all your enemies, troubles, fears, challenges, and addictions, as He did for Jehoshaphat and the people of Judah. Not a single one of your adversaries will escape because the Lord Himself fights your battles.
“This is how I fight my battles!”
HIS LOVE ALONE
By Ed Elliot
The critical elder brother related to his father based on his performance as did the Prodigal Son. One believed he deserved his inheritance because of his obedience in keeping his father’s laws. And the other knew he was undeserving of every being a son again because his sins were great and many.
While one son boasted he had kept and obeyed his father’s laws and commandments, the other son confessed his sins and failures to show how unqualified he was to be a son.
You aren’t accepted by God based on how holy and good you have been. Neither are you rejected by God based on how sinful you have been. It isn’t your performance, positive or negative, that earns you anything from God. It is all about the Father loving you as you are.
The incredible truth about God’s love is that it never leaves you in the same condition it found you.
“For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lust and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour.” Titus 3:3-6
YOUR FLESH VS. GOD’S GRACE
The Old Testament law of God is incapable of changing a person’s heart. Whereas, God’s love is capable of not only changing a person’s heart but transforming a person’s life.
The Old Testament law was all about the flesh aka human effort. Faith that works by love is how God connects to people’s hearts to transform them.
“For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision available any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love: (Galatans 5:6)
When you choose to believe and trust in the love God has for you, your faith will work as God intended it to. Faith is simply trusting in God’s love and goodness He has for you.
Law produces condemnation and fear in the hearts of men. It can modify their behavior but will never change their hearts. God isn’t interested in modified behavior but in hearts changed by His love and grace.
Love gives birth to faith in a person’s heart and has the power to change it in ways that the law is unable to. Therefore, God connects to people’s hearts by faith, not by their flesh aka human efforts. It isn’t your efforts or good works that change you. It is knowing God’s love for you that does. Good works are evidence that you know God loves you.
By Ed Elliot
Jesus , take the wheel
Take it from my hands
‘Cause I can’t do this on my own
I’m letting go……..
So give me one more chance
And save me from this road I’m on
Jesus, take the wheel.
Then Jesus went to work on his disciples. “Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat; I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self. What kind of deal is it to get everything you want but lose yourself? What could you ever trade your soul for?” Matthew 16:25-26
John 13:34-35 Message
“Let me give you a new command; Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples–when they see the love you have for each other.”
James 3:17-18 Message
“ Real wisdom, God’s wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings; not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced. You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor.
A Simple but Deeply Profound Biblical Truth
that Changes Everything by Ed Elliot
Believers can only love others to the degree they are being loved by God. You can’t give to others what you have not received or experienced for yourself.
What Jesus taught about God’s love, the disciples later taught the same truth that a person’s ability to love others is in direct proportion to their acceptance of God’s love for them.
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love,” John 15:9.
The disciples realized that how Jesus loved them was how God loves people. Truth is they were experiencing God’s love to the same degree Jesus was.
John wrote so eloquently about loving God had nothing to do with what we did for God or how we lived. It was about what we believed and experienced from God.
“Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another,” I John 4:10-11.
Notice John explains what the end result will be when we believe God loves and has forgiven us. We are now capable of loving and forgiving others as we have been loved and forgiven.
So trying harder to be a good loving Chrisiian won’t make you a loving Christian. Believing in the love God has for you will.
I John 4:19 “We love God because He first loved us.”
You can’t love God until you believe and receive the love He has for you. The greatest decision you will ever make in your life is to simply accept God’s love you and live in that truth 24/7 You will never regret it.
The deception of religion is it teaches you to turn away from sin; whereas, the gospel teaches you to turn to God who sets you free from sin.
Where you turn matters. The Pharisees turned from sin, but they never turned to God. When you believe you can resist or overcome sin without God’s help, you allow pride to consume you and bring you down. This is called self-righteousness.
“Pride goes before destruction, and haughty spirit before a fall. (Proverbs 16;18)
Freedom from sin isn’t possible by self-effort; it happens by God’s power alone only when we yield to His grace and love for help.
We have a 24/7 invitation to God’s throne room whenever we need His help and power. The only qualification is you must come as you are! But the beautiful thing is you won’t leave as you came. God’s presence changes you into who He created you to be in Him.
“Therefore let us (with privilege) approach the throne of grace (that is, the throne of God’s gracious favor) with confidence and without fear, so that we may receive mercy (for our failures) and find (His amazing) grace to help in time of need (an appropriate blessing, coming just at the right moment)” Hebrews 4:16 (AMP)
IN MY FATHER’S HOUSE
In the Father’s house I have been set free
Through the Blood of his Son Jesus all my sins are forgiven
My name He has cleared
In the Father’s house my every need is supplied
He offers protection from the storms that come
In the pavilion of His wings He has made a safe place for me
In the Father’s house there is peace and fullness of joy
Oh to know the love, mercy, grace of my Heavenly Father Words could never express
In my Father’s house I have choose to remain
The emptiness that was here He has filled
The search has ended and in His Grace I rest
In my Father’s house you will find many precious like saints
They are there to help and encourage you along the way
You will know you are not alone on this life’s race
“Because of the sacrifice of the Messiah, his blood poured out on the altar of the Cross, we’re a free people–free of penalties and punishments chalked up by all our misdeeds. And not just barely free, either. Abundantly free! He thought of everything, provided for everything we could possibly need, letting us in on the plans he took such delight in making. He set it all out before us in Christ, a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth. Ephesians 1:7-10
Nothing You Can Do Will Ever Stop God from Loving you! Ed Eliot
The love God has for you isn’t based on anything you did or did not do. It is based entirely on who He is. When you discover who He is, you will know how much you are loved.
“In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.” (I John 4:10-12).
“But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
How to live Fearlessly
“You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day, nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday.” Psalm 91:5-6
In the midst of all that is happening in the world, you can be fearless, and this comes from knowing the Lord as the God of peace. He will crush every fear, every worry, and every anxiety.
Grace-the undeserved, unearned, and unmerited favor of God–is the only thing against which the devil has no defense. That is why we put our faith in the blood of Jesus when we talk about protection. Grace qualifies us for God’s all-encompassing protection.
“The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” Psalm 18:2
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