Theme of the Day: The Least Qualified Are The First Sent Imagine you need heart bypass surgery. When meeting with the surgeon, you ask, “How many of these have you done?” He responds, “You get the honor of being my very first patient!” You probably feel more anxious than honored. With important jobs, we understand […]

Theme of the Day: Popularity Is Not Proof Of Success In 2009, Facebook added the “like” button. That same year, Twitter added the “retweet” feature. Interestingly, reported cases of depression began to rise sharply in 2010. It is easy to think that the more people like us, the more successful our lives must be. Likewise, […]

Theme of the Day: Rejection Is Not Proof Of Failure When you are trying to share some important information with someone, but they refuse to listen or perhaps totally reject what you are saying, it feels like you have failed. This is especially true when someone rejects the gospel! We proclaim the good news because […]

Theme of the Day: God Delivers More Than We Ask, Not Less It is easy for us to assume that if God says “no” to a request, we are getting less than we wanted. We need to have an epiphany moment, seeing the reality—that God always wants more for us than we want from him. […]

Theme of the Day: Your Baptism Seals Your Identity “Who is Jesus?” For the longest time, people thought the answer to that question was, “Mary and Joseph’s son” or “a carpenter from Nazareth.” While true enough, those answers do not adequately describe Jesus. But when Jesus was baptized, God the Father spoke, declaring Jesus true […]

Theme of the Day: The Gift of God Is For All People On Christmas Eve the angel told the shepherds, “I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people” (Luke 2:10). One wonders if those words struck those Jewish shepherds as odd. For centuries, God had given special attention to […]

Theme of the Day: God Gives Both Substitute and Sacrifice The Son of God took on flesh for two reasons: to be our substitute and our sacrifice. When God created mankind in his image, his desire was that we would live holy lives, full of love for him and our fellow man. When mankind fell […]

Theme of the Day: A Real Christmas Will Lift Up The Lowly By this time of the holiday season, people are often weighted down. They feel guilty about presents that are not perfect, or parties that did not go as planned, or year-end projects that did not get completed. To top it all off, now […]

Theme of the Day: A Real Christmas Results In Great Joy Multiple studies have proven that the holiday season exacerbates mental health issues. For some, the pressure to have “a perfect Christmas” can be overwhelming. For others, their loneliness is amplified. Such people need a real Christmas, one that results in great joy. But joy […]

Theme of the Day: A Real Christmas Is Rooted In Repentance The closer we get to Christmas, the greater the pressure. There is so much work to be done! We want our houses to look good for out-of-town guests. We want to impress people with the thoughtfulness of our gifts. What a welcome relief, therefore, […]