Pastor David's Podcast

Jesus talked about the subject of money, how we think about it, feel about it, use it more than any other subject including love and forgiveness. And it’s not because it’s more important to Jesus, it’s because He knows that it is the chief competition for our affections and our hearts.

To have a healthy culture, we each need to take individual ownership of how we serve guests and make sure we have a good reputation in our community. Pastor David challenged us with some questions to do just that. Culture: the beliefs, behaviors, and customs that a group of people accept, generally without thinking about them; that shapes who we are and how we will interact.

We want to develop and guard the kind of warm, welcoming environment at Creative Church that will magnify the message of God’s incredible grace that none of us deserve.

Why did God choose Saul? Why three days of darkness and silence? Why send Ananias to say something that God easily could have said to him? And what did Ananias even really do that was all that significant anyway? Just listen to this story. Read Acts chapter 9 verses 1-19. All Ananias did was he walked in and said: Brother Saul, God has sent me to you. And bam! He received his sight back.

Just like our base camp series that we are in, we stop at base camp to learn from one another. To help each other on our way to the summit. To learn something new along the way. Even when I’m studying and preparing a lesson, God is speaking to me and teaching me new things along the way. Have you ever read something, and you know you read it before, but this time your like, wow, I never thought of it that way before?

Base Camp is where you repack your gear, to make sure that you’re fully rested, that you’ve got nutrition and to build relationships with the people who you are going to be depending on to get to the summit. Base Camp is necessary if you’re going to reach the summit. The summit that we’re referring to in this series is personal transformation.

We’ve been talking for a little over a month now about where do we see ourselves in five years. You in five years, who do you want to be in five years? And the question being, who do I want to be in 2025? This week, I want to ask the question, what if our five-year plans don't go as we planned? What if our plans fail, or life happens differently than what we thought?

There are many different words for God's plan for our lives—you could call it your destiny, calling, purpose or life's goal. But when we read Scripture, it is undeniable that our Creator has a plan for each one of us, and He desires to see us walk out this plan. The problem is that many people don’t have any real sense of what God's plan for them is. This series has been helping us discover our God given destiny.

This lesson is about Israel entering into all that God has for them, little by little. God gives them a pep talk before they enter into the promise land. Why? Because it wasn't going to be easy. It's not going to be easy for you to become who God wants you to be either in five years from now. What God wanted them to understand is that when God is with you, nothing can stop you from moving forward into your destiny.

Commitment #1: When God calls you to do something, you don't have to understand all the details to obey immediately. Commitment #2: God uses the most, are the ones who hold on to the least. The PATH to “Something Greater” goes through the valley of surrender, sacrifice and service.