When our lives are filled with anxiety, uncertainty, and fatigue, how can we find a different way to respond? Worship can change our life. Because to worship is to get a glimpse of a different reality. And when we change the way we see reality, it transforms the way we respond to reality.
Have you ever felt like you were made for something? Is that just an evolutionary drive, or is it real? This passage is a letter from Jesus to the church. But it’s really all about finding and surrendering yourself to that something you were made for. The church shows us what that is.
Revelation isn’t just about the future. It meets us in the middle of our mess, pain, and suffering and gives us a bigger story that helps us not just to endure those things, but to flourish in the midst of them.
Many think of Revelation as a puzzle book: the goal of reading it is to crack the code and unlock the events of the future. But Revelation is more like a picture book. The goal of reading is to immerse yourself in God’s way of seeing the world. Because when we change the way we see reality, it changes the way we respond to reality.
Polarization is one of the biggest challenges in our society. Some people would say it’s important to take a stand and protect your beliefs and way of life, even if it means polarization. Others would say we should abandon primitive religious belief structures and work together on the things that really matter. In this passage, God offers us a third way. This week we conclude our series on the vision of CWE Church talking about cultural renewal, especially in the city. How do we relate to the city? God shows us in this famous passage.
Life in this world is full of suffering and unfulfilled desires, which can lead us to find ways (sex, drugs, social media, etc.) to escape the pain. It would be easy to think that our big struggle in life is with suffering. But this passage tells us our real struggle is with hope, and that if you can transform your understanding of hope, it will transform your experience of suffering.
We live in a profoundly justice-oriented culture, but it’s still a controversial topic. Some Christians thing the gospel is only about “spiritual matters.” Other Christians think the church should get rid of primitive doctrines like sin, atonement, and conversion. Many other-than-Christians wonder why we should listen to the Bible at all. Jesus, however, has a lot to say about justice, as we find out in this passage.
Suddenly, there are new phrases that dominate our reality. “Essential services” is one of them (e.g. physical, health, and economic needs). Jesus always paid attention to those needs, but also pointed to a need beneath the need. For Jesus, the deepest need of revery human being is spiritual renewal. He came to meet that need, and also called his followers to share his provision of that need with others. “Conversion” is a controversial topic, but let’s see what Jesus shows us about it.
What do you do when your life gets hijacked? How do you respond to fear, vulnerability, lack of control, and worst of all, isolation? This story helps us see how God uses all those things to make Jacob (and all of us) a vehicle of His mission to renew and restore community.
If God loves us and accepts us by grace, why not live however you want? Anytime the gospel of grace is proclaimed, it will elicit this question. In this passage, Paul takes the question seriously, but essentially shows us that if we’re asking it, we don’t really understand the gospel. To help us, Paul takes us through three steps, from spiritual slavery, to spiritual life, to spiritual transformation.
We continue our series on the vision of CWE Church. In this parable, Jesus shows us the heart of the gospel. The gospel is the most surprising, counterintuitive religion in the world, precisely because it’s unlike every other religion in the world. How? Join us for this week’s episode.
What is the gospel? Obviously, it has something to do with Jesus. But beyond that, answers multiply pretty quickly. A common, popular answer is that Jesus was a great moral teacher who taught us to be good people. His death was an example of selfless love, and if we imitate his love, we’ll make the world a better place. But what if we could ask Jesus himself? In this passage, Jesus explains the gospel by exlaining the meaning of his death. Join us for the first episode of our new vision series!
The “Second Coming” is one of the main teachings of Jesus. What does it mean? And what should be our response? Is it passively waiting for Jesus to destroy the world and carry us away to heaven? Or something else? Jesus shows us the answers in this passage.
One of our biggest fears as human beings is FOBLO: Fear Of Being Left Out. We all want to live in a world where we are welcomed, wanted, and invited in. The question that Jesus is pressing on us, however, is not, “Do you want to live in a world where you are welcomed?” The question is, “Do you want to live in a world that welcomes people you would exclude?” What would such a world look like? How would we create such a world? And how is it even possible? Join us this week as Jesus shows us the surprising answer.
We have a lot of ideas about what true freedom is. The Bible says that freedom is not the absence of power over you, but having the the right power over you. What does this mean, and how does it happen? Join us as we continue our series on discipleship in the gospel of Luke.
In the “Travel Narrative” of Luke’s gospel, Jesus invites his followers on a spiritual journey. That sounds very appealing. What’s not so appealing is the amount of time Jesus spends talking about money. And yet we worry about money all the time. Jesus is showing us that we can’t really follow him on this spiritual journey unless we get honest about the deep spiritual problem we have with money. In this passage, he helps us face the problem and provides the remedy.
This passage offers us two challenges. First, Jesus calls his followers to persuade others to follow him (otherwise known as evangelism, and a definite no-no in our culture). Second, he addresses one of our deepest aspirations as humans: to be real, true, authentic selves. On the surface, those two things appear to have nothing to do with each other. But Jesus says they have everything to do with each other! How? Join us as we continue this series on following Jesus.
In moments of desperation, even the most skeptical people will very often find themselves praying to God for help. But when that desperate moment comes, do we know what to say? If you are going to ask God for help, then you need to know how to pray. In Luke 11, Jesus teaches us how to do just that. Join us as we continue our series on learning discipleship from Jesus.
There’s a difference between believing something is true, and experiencing it as real. For most of us, this world feels more real than anything, especially the daily pressures and demands of life. But Jesus says there’s a world beyond this world that’s infinitely more real. It’s called the Kingdom of God, and compared to it, this world is the dream world. In this passage, Jesus teaches us about the kingdom, and what it means to make the kingdom real to others.
The idea of life as a journey of transformation is one of the most instinctive, enduring, and compelling ideas in in our lives. The middle section of the gospel of Luke (known as “The Travel Narrative” or “Journey to Jerusalem”) is just such a journey. In fact, it is a journey unlike any other. Jesus invites us on a road trip to personally teach us what it means to follow him, and find transformation not just for ourselves, but for the whole world. In this passage, Jesus lays out some basic principles for us. Join him on the road!
