Celebration Center

Every one of us matter to God. Even when we run from or resist Him, His pursuing love keeps coming to win us back to Him. For people of the 2nd chance, the focus is not on what it IS, but what it CAN be…God’s grace changes everything, and in Jonah 3 we see Jonah’s 2nd chance, Nineveh’s 2nd chance, and ultimately OUR 2nd chance!

Sometimes in life we find ourselves in some REALLY hot water from a decision we have made. All our choices have a consequence, and we have a good loving father who lovingly disciplines us to bring us back to Him. How we react when disciplined is key! Do we receive it, grow from it, and let it shape and mold us? Or do we reject it and keep running? When we are confronted by God, do we get BETTER or BITTER?

Our actions have a lot to do with not just what happens to us, but also with what happens to others around us. Storms in life can hit us from all angles, and our minds and attitudes play out in our actions, which lead in either running to Jesus, or away from Him. If Jesus commanded you to go love someone that you despised, what would you think? How would you respond? How would you act? Would you run TO Jesus, or AWAY from Him?

What if you mess up, and feel like you are unable to do what God has asked? You need another chance, but you feel like you lost your opportunity to do it because you ran from His call? The good news is that we serve a God who not only cares about the work He asks you do you, but He cares about you! So much so, that He always gives another chance.

The commands of Jesus that we have studied up until this week are meaningless if we don’t understand the repercussions of them. Namely, Jesus wants us to follow Him and do things His way so that we can be sent into the world, now that He is back in heaven. He has left us His Holy Spirit to guide us into the broken world around us. Therefore, if we want to go All In for Jesus, we must live the commission He has left us with.

It is often said that knowing Jesus can happen in a single moment with a single prayer, while following Jesus happens over the course of a lifetime. Jesus uses His words strategically throughout His ministry, calling people of all different backgrounds and lifestyles to follow Him. Our task this week is to answer the question: what happens when we decide to follow Jesus? And if we answer that question; we will experience what it means to go All In for Jesus.

In a world full of expectations and demands, Christian’s can tend to get caught up in the logistics of expecting God show up or hearing from Him. The reality is, we have a hard enough time figuring out the best way to hear from God and can get so crippled by those logistics that we miss it altogether. How does God speak? When does He speak? Why can’t I hear Him?

Have you ever been given something of great value? How do you treat it? We’ve been entrusted with a treasure of great value – God’s grace. It has been given by God, and passed down through generations. How should this affect our daily life? And how might this treasure that you hold affect the future?

After we have learned what it truly means to deny ourselves, Jesus calls us to take up our cross. While this is a command that brings back the image of Jesus carrying His own cross, He wants us to apply this metaphorically to our lives. Taking up our cross means that the road ahead will be difficult at times. Will we walk away when it gets too tough? Or will we take up our cross as Jesus did?

Jesus often gives commands that seem backwards from anything we hear elsewhere in the world around us. As part of His famous 3-step command to living life, Jesus first says that we must be people who deny ourselves. This doesn’t mean that we mope around in life having no fun. Instead, Jesus is calling us to give up our old ways of doing things and enter into the abundant life of Christ.

All throughout history we deal with sickness, injury, and death. Through various situations we pray and either see God heal, doctors heal, or ultimate healing where people pass from this world and into the presence of Jesus. How do we process through these times when it feels like our prayers aren’t answered, or we feel like God isn’t healing the way he does in scripture? Ultimately we will see that He is sovereign and healing doesn’t always look/work the way we think…

Our life is full of appointments. Some we look forward to, others we avoid or are late to on purpose. What do we do when we are dreading an appointment? To the Dr? To the Dentist? What about when we have an appointment with God and we REALLY don’t like what is currently happening in life. Will be listen to his prescription and look for His will, or will we live in disappointment with his path, and where we currently are in it?

There is no amount of sin in our lives that can separate us from the love of God. If we are willing to confess, He is willing to forgive. We can live pure lives because God promises us forgiveness through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Our part is to repent and believe, that is the message we are given throughout the New Testament to experience new life in Jesus.

Sometimes we are tempted to be discouraged because of what seems like wasted time, wasted opportunity, or wasted potential. However, God promises us that He will use all things in our lives to work out His plans. Nothing is wasted when God is involved, His goodness abounds in all things.

Life has a way of throwing all kinds of trials our way. It might be disappointment, mistakes, sickness, persecution or loss, but through it all, God promises to offer us grace that is sufficient for whatever season we’re in. We learn to rejoice in everything, because we know that His grace is enough.

It’s sweet to know that when we find life to be overwhelming, God has offered rest for us. When we find ourselves weary and burdened, sometimes it’s because we have taken on a yoke or a way of living that comes from the world rather than from God. Living to please others can be crushing, but finding God is already pleased with us offers us rest.

Giving, something that some churches never talk about or maybe talk about too much. Sometimes we can feel like we are being manipulated into giving money, or maybe we even thing tithing is only an Old Testament principle? Money talks, and something it says is “Give Me.” Scripture speaks a lot of giving, and even says that THIS is the area to test God… Giving says a lot about priority, obedience, faith, and trust!

“In God We Trust” is printed on all American currency…paper and coin. We see it, we read it, but do we actually LIVE by it? Trusting money can seem easier and more convenient, but it may not always lead us in the way that God directs in scripture. How do we differentiate trusting God vs Trusting the almighty dollar, and what is the difference between the two? Money offers us something, but God offers us something else!

Missions are important, so important that the last command Jesus gave on Earth was to go to the world and spread the message of His love. Today we will hear from the Mexico Missions team, and learn about how we all can be a part of the Great Commission.

Are you uncertain how to know God’s voice. “Is that thought from God or not? Is that the Holy Spirit or just an impression, or idea of my own? How can I know when God is speaking to me? Acts chapters 10 and 11 is full of the amazing story of how Simon Peter, the former Jewish fisherman - now a disciple/apostle of Jesus – is directed by God to take the good news of Jesus to the Gentiles - something that had never been done before - and something no orthodox Hebrew would ever consider doing, because it was unlawful. Join us we see how Peter learned to know when God was speaking to him.