“We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Thess. 1:2-3) Early on in our current Sunday morning sermon series...

Meditating on Psalm 104 this morning, I saw three concepts that bring power to prayer: praise, perspective, and promise. This beautiful creation psalm recasts the Genesis account in poetic language. Verses 5-9 draw our attention to the creation of the earth, specifically. You set earth on a firm foundation    so that...

“I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.” – Romans 15:13 (NLT) The other day I left the hose on to fill up...

Anxiety. Despair. Discouragement. Disillusionment. They tend to set our emotions in motion and consume our thoughts. These descriptive words tend to worm their way into our daily lives. In a well-known passage in Philippians, Paul penned the pattern for relief. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication...

Christians today are characterized as joyful, right? Not so fast! According to a Pew Research Center report in 2019 only 36% of the “actively religious” describe themselves as very happy. That is at least higher than the 25% of inactively religious that claim to be very happy, right? I have no idea...