Be Rich is one of our favorite times of the year. Be Rich is a campaign to change our local world by positively impacting individuals and organizations that are making a difference in people’s lives. Be Rich is a focus that takes our attention off of ourselves and puts it onto God and others. Be Rich shows us how God wants us to respond to His blessings and teaches us how to love beyond self, serve beyond self and give beyond self.
Be Rich isn’t about learning how to get rich, because plenty of people are trying to tell you how to get rich. Instead, Be Rich teaches us how to be rich in a way that honors God.
There is an unseen war that has been taking place since before mankind was created. It’s a battle between God and Satan, between love and indifference, between good and evil. And this war, even though much of it is unseen, affects you and me on a daily basis. It wasn’t always this way. In the Garden of Eden, it was paradise. But when Adam and Eve decided they were going to go their way instead of God’s way, all the problems started. And those problems continue because you and I have done the same thing Adam and Eve did. It’s called sin. Sin entered the world and broke everything. This is why Jesus came – to pay for sin and give us hope. But that doesn’t mean that our enemy has given up. This series will help us see how we can, with God’s help, fight the unseen war and be victorious.
The Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is the story of God’s love and His desire to be reconciled with you and me. Sin separated us from God, and from that day to this He has been working to bring us back into relationship with Him.
Within the story of the Bible we find many stories involving various individuals and waking us through the role they played in the big story. One of those individuals was an Old Testament prophet named Elijah, and the message series, “Someone Like You” is his story. Elijah was a unique individual, and his story is just as unique as he was. And if you’re thinking, “Hey, this Elijah guy was a prophet, so he definitely wasn’t ‘someone like me’”……..you might be surprised.
Everyone does dumb things periodically, but there are some particularly dumb things that smart Christians do. This message is about a few things that smart Christians habitually do (or don’t do) over time that keep us from experiencing the life God wants us to experience; things that keep us from becoming the people God wants us to become and things that sabotage our joy and peace in Christ. I hate seeing that happen, and it happens all too often. If you’re a Christian who does dumb things, I want something better for you. God wants something better for you. And you want something better for you.
Here’s something we all know: It is impossible to solve a problem when you don’t know what’s wrong to begin with.
We’ve all tried to do this and every time we’ve discovered that it’s impossible. As an example: When you hear an unusual noise under the hood of the car, you you open the hood and stare. You don’t know what you’re staring at nor what’s making the noise, but you look. And since you don’t know what’s wrong it’s impossible to fix the problem.
Here’s where this gets real: Some of you have been trying to “solve you” for a long time. You’ve spent money trying to solve you. Some of you, your spouse sent you to talk to somebody about solving you, because it’s like, “Either get fixed or I’m gone, because you’re a problem.” The problem is, it’s hard to solve you if you’re not sure what the problem is to begin with.
In this series we will hear from the Apostle Paul as he addresses the root of the problem, and we will discover God’s solution.
