Do You Trust God? God sees and knows all things—beyond what we can even imagine that He knows or can do. Today, I want to encourage you to trust Him in this moment, in this decision in your life.

I love the challenge of a maze—the pursuit of a goal with hidden dead ends and wrong turns along the way. Life is like that too, isn’t it? Although the fun vanishes when you get stuck and are unable to find your way

Has God ever spoken to you, warned you, chastened you, encouraged you, taken you a new direction, grown you, comforted you, shown you His love--through the calamities happening in the world around you?

Have you messed up? … Perhaps it started as a small compromise or little white lie, maybe you turned left when we know we should have turned right. The list is endless. Then one day you wake up to a different reality than you expected to be in, and you wonder how you got there.

Perpetua showed no fear. After being gored by a bull, she fixed her ripped dress and pinned her hair back up and encouraged her fellow Christians, saying, “Stand firm in the faith! And all of you love you one another and don’t be offended because of our suffering.”

Who wouldn’t want a world full of peace, love, and joy? This great “idea” comes from deep within our souls. But the way to it is shrouded by lies.

It is so easy to be discouraged when you look around at this world. So I want to encourage you today to have HOPE–Confidence in your God’s reality, presence, and justice.

My friend, *you are not alone.* God sees you and loves you.

Moses’ staff was a “banner”— a symbol of God’s presence. With it, God led the Israelites miraculously out of Egypt victorious. After an amazing victory against the Amalekites, “Moses built an altar and named it The Lord Is My Banner” A.K.A. Jehovah Nissi…God is a banner over me

How you treat your body matters. It's time to start treating it like the Temple that it is!

God loves us unconditionally and wants the best for us. But we are very short-sighted, focusing only on what we see, setting our eyes horizontally towards things of this world. God’s best is much bigger.

When you put your hope in Jesus you were transformed into a new creation, so why do you still see yourself in your old skin?

Did you accomplish last year’s resolutions? Did you exceed your expectations, or did you fall miserably short? What will you do differently this year to assure success?

The Christmas story we crafted around the details of the actual event doesn’t exactly match the text or the history or the archeology, BUT the core remains: God incarnate (in the flesh) came to dwell with us as this precious baby, and He was and is Emmanuel, “God with us”!

Don’t worry about what others think of you -- just keep your eyes on Jesus!

Have you ever gotten in a mess that was too big for you to untangle by yourself?

Look around you. Do you see the small green leaves pushing up between the sidewalk, yellow flowers growing in a field, the sun shining in the sky?

In the midst of this celebratory frenzy Jesus said, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life” (John 8:12).

If no one saw: Would you put something in the offering plate? Raise your hands when worshipping? Clean up the church? Take someone a meal? Would you do it if only God knew?

Don’t be fooled, it’s not the doll or even the media that messes with our self-esteem—it’s the enemy known as the Deceiver, the Father of Lies, the Beast!