Ghost Stories

If we're going to be people of faith...we've got to wait.

We've got to pray. We've got to ask, we got to depend, we got to trust, not in ourselves but in the gift that God promised in the one that He's given us the Holy Spirit.

We want to feel good about ourselves. We we want to go to church and just get a little pick me up. “Just tell me God love me and send me on my way...."

If we're just encouraged all the time we may never change. We need to be convicted because there's things in our lives where we are not in step with God’s best for us.

“We have been partners in spreading the Good News of Jesus.” This is what we are going after.

We want to make people alive again through Jesus just like he has done in us. We want everyone to come alive in Jesus. So who are the people close to you but far from God? We are a fellowship on purpose built around people coming alive in Jesus.

There’s no bottom that you can hit that Jesus won’t restore and redeem you....

Guest speaker Jon Tisevich joins us in week four of our Ghost Stories series to remind us that with God, things can change. There isn't anything we can do to make God love us less and even in the darkest of places, God will meet us there and bring us back to Him.

God uses our gifts to change our world but He also changes us as we give...

We're not just changing lives and meeting needs, but we're also saying thank you when we give it's like “God, you've given us so much. Thank you. Here's some back.” The question is, are we giving? Like it's all God's? Or are we gripping? Like it's all ours? There's a big difference.

Partnership with God always means partnership with His people....

God brings good people around us to help bring out the best in us. This is by design. This is the way God meant for us to thrive … and not just survive. We were meant for partnership.

Have you ever been in one of those situations where you think that you're in a place for one reason, but God has you there for a completely different reason?

God has a funny way of using us in the times and situations where we least expect it. We call these divine appointments. Listen in as we learn how we can make a difference if we did what it says in James “Don't just listen to the word. Do what it says.”

You're not too far gone for God's grace...

In Acts 9, we see too people (Saul & Ananias) on two different pages of faith. Some of us feel too far gone in this life for God to reach us and turn around things in our lives that we've done. And some of us have people in our lives that God has put there on purpose...to love, reach, & share the Good News that we have already as believers. Either way, the grace and love of God is never out of reach.

Do you have any prejudices or preferences that are affecting God's purpose for your life?

Do you have any prejudices that are keeping you from reaching out to people whether it's political or skin tone, or religious or education, or income level, special needs, maybe people that you're not reaching out to because they're different than you and you don't understand that? Maybe it's not just time to repent, it's time to build some relationships like Peter, I gotta go out the door of that house. I gotta hop over that fence and shake some hands and reach out to somebody that I gotta get uncomfortable for the sake of the last.

Imagine what would happen if each one of us found one other person in your lives and said the words, “ICNU” to them? And then you began investing in them and doing life together, teaching them what God is teaching you, serving together side by side. Could it be that God is just waiting for you to speak words of encouragement into them so that He could unleash their God given potential and begin using them in extraordinary ways?

God made a difference in Paul so that He could make a difference in the lives of others. The Holy Spirit's purpose is to empower us to live a spirit-filled life, not for self-gratification but to bring others closer to faith. What would happen in your life if we allowed God’s spirit to move in and through you wherever you go?

Relationally, physically, it's all about small things leading in a direction of big things over time that change us. Paul was focused! He regularly did what other people only sporadically did. And here’s the deal…we become what we repeatedly do. Paul lived his life with the end in mind. How about you?

It’s all about the going, the sharing, the inviting…

And you keep on going and you keep on sharing, and you keep on inviting to the ends of the earth. What’s keeping you from doing just that, going, sharing, inviting? Embarrassment? Fear? Busyness? You and I are continuing to write this story as Jesus fans and followers. Will you respond?