FORGOTTEN HOLIDAY - Do you have your celebration planned yet and did you invite the relatives? Did you purchase the appropriate flower display to properly represent this next holiday? It is amazing how Christmas and Easter are off the chart holidays on the Christian calendar. Even the world pauses a few moments to "celebrate" these big days. So why does Pentecost, the third major festival of the church year, receive so little attention and celebration? I'm hoping we can change that, even a little bit, this weekend as we study Joel 2:28-32. Our theme is "Baggage Check" (and other blessings of Pentecost).
What did you lose? What did you gain?
What was lost has been restored!
There was a popular song lyric a while back that said, "We were meant to live for so much more, but we lost ourselves." Well, because of Easter, what was lost has been restored. This weekend we wrap up the Easter season by studying Romans 4:25 and taking hold of what "You Were Made To..."
Because this is an expression that has been twisted and misused in recent times, allow me to define it for our purposes. The new normal is: the current state of being after some dramatic change has transpired. The new normal is what replaces what we previously expected. For instance, in high school I had a class to learn how to type on a typewriter. Now we do everything on computers - that is the new normal.
Easter presents us with a new normal for our earthly lives as we dig into our second last lesson of the Easter Epistles series from Romans 6:3-8.
Today is the first day of the rest of your life. It's not just at New Year's when people resolve to change and start over. It seems whenever there is a new fad, a new diet program, or a new self-help process, people are compelled to change. So how's that working out for you? Maybe you are not one of the millions to start over and over, again. But maybe part of you is, or at least you have considered changing something in your life. What if I told you there is one thing that actually does change your life? I will tell you this weekend as we study 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 and see how Jesus' resurrection compels us to see life from a new perspective of "Not what, but why".
What does a good life look like? God's answer to that question may surprise you. This weekend, as we celebrated Mother's Day & Confirmation, we studied 2 Timothy 1:8-11 and learn to embrace "The UnWasted Life."
There's a life that God created you to live. Sin broke it. But the resurrection restores it. Learn how the resurrection "rejoys" us with this lesson from 1 Peter 1:3-6.
How was your week? Easter was so much fun! But what about Monday? How about the rest of the week? This weekend's lesson, 1 John 3:1-3, frees you to admit that you don't see all the results of Easter just yet but that doesn't mean you shouldn't embrace "The New You."
An Easter message from an unlikely source, Revelation 5:11-14. "Worthy is the Lamb, Amen!" How does looking out at the world from inside the tomb change the way we view Easter, and our lives?