Blaze Church

Life 101, Week 3: Just Like Dad - Every person is on a joruney to know God. As image-bearers, we want to know the God who made us. But what do we do with what we read and hear? Do we minimize the law, and simply try to do our best? Do we legalize it, and strive to complete every detail? Jesus makes knowing God possible by perfectly fulfilling the law. We can be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect, because of Jesus the perfect Son of God.

Life 101, Week 2: The Science of Sharing Faith - Jesus came to this world to be your personal Savior. When we confuse our personal Savior with a private Savior, we lose our purpose. Our reason for living is to know Jesus and make Jesus known to others. In His first public message, Jesus explains how that happens by using the examples of salt and light. 

Life 101, Part 1: Blessed Are... - Determination can only get us so far. We can try as hard as we want, but we are often presented with just two options when determination has run its course: defeat or dependence. Can we be determined enough to know God? To experience His blessings? In Jesus' first public message, he began by laying out a path for us to walk on to know the blessings of God. When we depend on Jesus, we receive everything He has promised us!

Every morning we wake up with a list of concerns. The reality is that most of these concerns can be taken away at any moment. When we live for our concerns, they end up controlling us. There is one concern that we can live for that changes every other concern. Jesus said that when we discover it, it will not be taken away. Discover what that one concern is, and start to live differently!

Do You Believe - What do we do when life doesn't go the way you planned for it to go? When hope is lost? How do you cope? Brokenness is a sure thing in this life. Jesus entered a broken situation. One of his friends died. During this tragedy, Jesus repeated this one word: believe. He asked his followers, people who were hurting, and the crowds one question: Do you believe? That is the question Jesus asks us today. When we believe, brokenness breaks!

Good Friday 2018 - We are used to conditional promises. I will, if you. That is why we get so skeptical when we hear the words "unconditonal" or "guaranteed." On the night before Jesus was crucified, He said, "I'm making a new promise." The question is, what kind of a promise was it? What were the terms and conditions? And why does it matter today? We discover the answer in what Jesus says as He celebrated the Passover meal with His disciples. 

Better Part 6 - When we experience fear, we choose a response. Some of us run. Some of us freeze. Some of us fight. But do any of those responses work? Through the story of David and Goliath we discover a fourth response to fear. The people of Israel placed their FAITH in David. When he won, they won. Jesus rode into Jerusalem to win our victory against sin and death. Because Jesus conquered death, we can fear differently, and know that he will defeat whatever we face. 

Better Part 5 - All throughout our day, there are opportunties for us to look down on other people. We elevate ourseleves because of what we've done, who we are, where we come from, our beliefs, or any reason we can find to say, "I'm better and more deserving than you are." Nationalism, racism, sexism, and a whole bunch of other "ism's" exist. God hates it. And so do you! Jonah was so proud of his Jewish background, that he could not celebrate God loving people who hurt him and were not like him. He would rather die, than live in a world with his enemies. We discover that Jesus came to this world to die, so that his enemies could live. God asked Jonah, "Can I show mercy to all people?" That is the question each of us have to answer today.

Better Part 4 - We all have areas of our life that we desperately try to control. We can't imagine trusting God with our relationships, time, or money. Why don't we trust God? Because of our view of Him. Today we see in the story of Abraham and Isaac that Abraham chose to open his hand and trust God because he believed God would provide. When we open our hand, we are able to experience the provision of God and live a life free of worry.

Better Part 3 - All relationships involve pain. What do you do when there is a fracture between you and someone else? How do you fix it? The only fix is forgiveness. We can have so many reasons not to forgive someone. Today, we discover the one reason to forgive. Forgiven people forgive people. The forgiveness that Jesus bought us is our reason to forgive and fix the fractures around us.