As I was converting messages to upload, I came across this precious prayer Cotter shared back in 2005 at the end of worship service. He was six. I love my boy.
Good Grief
On July 22, 2006, our family received the devastating news that my mom, Georgina McAnally, had taken her own life. This message, given a year later, allowed me the opportunity to share what I learned about mourning, grief, and ultimately, recovery.
While only those who walk through life’s deep valley of grief can fully appreciate the pain of unexpected loss, this message is intended to give hope for every person when tragic times come to pass.
Grief is pain-filled, it is difficult, and it is bitter. Yet, it is in grief that God’s goodness and faithfulness is found. May you be blessed in your grief, and my prayer is that you are comforted by the love of God and the peace of Christ.
A New Resolve
Originally shared on New Year’s Day 2006, this message looks at the every-person habit of making resolutions and all too often seeing those promises get broken before the first month is out. This tradition highlights the reality that many people want to see change in their lives but lack the resolve to see it through.
Using the Bible’s book of Romans (Chapter 12) as a source, see how God desires for you to no longer have a mind that is conformed to the flawed, faulty, failing ways of this world, but instead to have a mind that is renewed and transformed for victorious living through faith in Christ.
Be encouraged to take every thought, attitude, behavior, and habit captive and look at life through a new perspective. Look at yourself as God sees you and develop the resolve to live as you have been created and redeemed!
Journey to the Center of the Earth
This conversation was originally part of a Summer Blockbuster discipleship series, where I used popular movies as a launching point for biblical discovery. This particular lesson explore what the Bible has to say about the reality of hell.
The purpose of this conversation is not to instill a “turn or burn” fear, but to explain the reality of the misery and hopelessness of hell. Discover that God loves you so much that he provides the way out of the literal, eternal hell that too many people unfortunately choose.
Using the story that Jesus told (found in Luke 8) comparing the after-life experiences of a wealthy man who died and a poor man named Lazarus who also died, we can learn what God has revealed about what happens when life on earth comes to an end.
Signed Sealed, & Delivered…Now What?
Without realizing it, most people are in the middle of an identity crisis. God wants you to know not only who he is, but who you can be by identifying with him through faith in Jesus.
In the first chapter of the book of Ephesians, the apostle Paul shares a wonderfully encouraging biography of who a person really is when he embraces who he is as a Christian.
Once you know who you are, you are empowered to live fully in that identity. Be free from the bad habits, the shackles of guilt and condemnations, and wrong thoughts about who God knows you to be! Discover that your identity is based on who you are and not what you do so you can be who God designed you to be!
