Richard Ellis Talks

The world is full of “what ifs” that can cause us to fear greatly. When we truly give our lives to God, we can find peace and rest in the fact that He holds our lives and nothing happens to us that He has not allowed and protected us through.

Since creation God has designed everything to need a time of rest. He commands us in the Old Testament to take a day of rest out of every seven days, but too often we get caught up in the busyness of our lives to take a break. Jesus says that we should come to Him when we are weary because He will help carry our burdens and give us the rest we need.

When Jesus left the planet, He gave us the Holy Spirit that empowers us to bring the Gospel message to all the nations of the world. The Bible tells us that it is God's desire for all to be saved, and we are His messengers sent to the nations to do His work and bring His Kingdom here on earth.

Just like Abraham had faith in God and obeyed God's instructions a little at a time, we need to trust that God has a plan and purpose that we cannot see and we need to simply take each step as He leads. When we obey with each piece He gives us, we eventually see the picture He had planned all along.

The truth and hope that we need in our daily lives is all in Scripture. Rather than assuming that we won't understand what's in it, we need to dive deeply into reading the Bible and learning from this text message that God wrote for us to teach us about Him and how to live our lives.

Multiple times in the Gospels Jesus shows us a picture of His relationship with the Father by seeking His guidance and approval before stepping out on His own. We need to live in the same way, asking God to show us how to use what He has given us for His purposes and step out in obedience.

God loved us so much that He sent His Son to die for our sins so that we could be brought into His family for eternity. While our earthly fathers may fail us, God promises that He will never leave us or forsake us, and that He will always take better care of us than anyone else ever could.

Because of Christ's death on the cross we now have the opportunity to become joint heirs with Him and call God our Daddy. When we become Christians, He lives inside of us, and when we die here on earth we get to go home to be with Him forever.

Sin is a slippery slope, and the devil entices us using things he knows will get our attention and leave us continually wanting more. God can give us the wisdom to know how to get out of these situations, but we must use it and actually make the right choices to follow God.

The best way for us to truly show our faith in Christ is through our actions. If we don't back up our faith with our works then our faith is dead and makes no difference in our lives.

God gives us the strength and resources to win every battle, but we must be willing to stand up and fight. When we take a stand in small things along the way, we will be ready to take a stand when the big challenges and battles come.

We all face giants in our lives, something that seems too big and strong for us to handle. We also have moments when we question if we will have all that we need because the circumstances we find ourselves in are so overwhelming. Just as God has fought for His people throughout Scripture, and just as He provides for all of His creation, He has promised to take care of us so we need not fear.

We often go about our lives making choices, big or small, without ever consulting God. Instead of asking Him to bless our choices after the fact, we should seek His wisdom and His plans for us, letting Him lead our decisions in all that we do.

It is important to be involved in a community of believers so that when we need help we can simply ask and receive the help that others offer. At the same time, when someone asks for help we can help them and trust that when our time of need comes that we will receive the same help that we offer others.

Our purpose on earth is about more than just receiving salvation and going to Heaven when we die. We are left here for the sake of others, to reach out to them with the Gospel and to disciple them in their relationship with the Lord. We disciple others so that they can go and do the same, growing the Kingdom in the process.

People in the church tend to celebrate marriage and act like that is the goal for everyone, looking at those who are single as simply waiting to be married. While God can gift someone with a spouse, He can also gift people with the freedom of singleness that should be celebrated by the Church as someone lives their life serving the Lord. If we are all following Jesus in obedience, than whatever life He calls us to live is a gift.

Jesus committed Himself to us, going all the way to death on the cross. We must follow Him by wholly committing ourselves to obedience to His Word and direction.

The Bible was given to us by God to remind us how we should live our lives. When we read His instructions, we need to not just hear what it says but obey.

There are moments in our lives that will shock us because we are faced with difficult circumstances out of nowhere. When we allow God to use us through those times to reach other people for His sake we can be in awe of His work to expand His Kingdom.

When the Bible talks about God bringing opportunities and opening doors for us, it is referring to moments for us to share the Gospel with others and to bring God glory. God wants us to be in close relationship with Him so that when He opens a door for us, we see it and go through it, trusting Him to provide all that's needed so that He can get the glory.

Just as our words can be used to build others up and encourage them, they can also be used to destroy people's lives. When we talk poorly about others, we are really only showing our own insecurities. Rather than using our words to damage, we should be using them to spread the Gospel and share Christ with others.

The term “about face” means to turn around completely and go in the opposite direction. When Jesus died on the cross He made it possible for us to turn from the sinful life we'd been living and follow Him. When we choose to follow Christ we begin a relationship with God, and when we die one day we will have a familiar face to face encounter and we will live with Him forever in Heaven.

We all experience suffering at different points in our lives, whether brought on by ourselves, others, or God Himself for the purpose of refining us. He always has purpose in every suffering that He allows, and when we look to Him we can find the strength to make it through. As we are led by Him, He will also use us to comfort others and help them through their suffering.

People are looking for something that is making a difference, and having knowledge of Biblical truth does not make a difference unless we are applying it to our lives. When God's Word is made known to us and we take further steps of application, transformation takes place and others see that and are pointed to God.

When we are caught up in sin and chasing it with all of our lives, we find ourselves being burned by the sin we're chasing with consequences and destruction. The fire that God can light in us through His Holy Spirit can burn away the desire for sin and stir an all consuming passion in our hearts for chasing after Jesus.

When Adam and Eve ate of the tree in the garden that God told them not to eat from, sin entered our world and brought spiritual death to all of us. God offers us a bite from the tree of life but in order to receive that life we have to take Jesus in by accepting His sacrifice for our sin and letting His life replace our spiritual death.

Rather than being wrapped up in one single event, the Christian life is a work in progress that involves struggling through sin and temptation. If we are not struggling, we are not moving. We will never arrive at completion until we see Jesus, and until then we need to continue to grow and mature.

Most of us have people in our lives that we would consider an enemy, someone who dislikes us and picks at us constantly because of their disdain. The Bible tells us that rather than lashing back at them we are to respond in kindness, and it is that kindness that inevitably heaps coals on their head, which will eventually cause them to question why we respond in love.

Jesus had many followers while He was here on earth, but at one point or another most all of them ditched. The opportunity to pick up and follow Him is always there, the question is simply whether or not we will choose to give up our own lives and follow Him closely or not.

When we let God have our whole lives, He transforms us just like planting a seed in the ground produces a new plant. God wants to use us to multiply His Kingdom but we must first give ourselves to Him to plant as He pleases.

David lived his life faithfully serving God, perfecting his skills and protecting what God gave him to care for. Because David had been faithful in facing the battles with the bears and the lions to protect his sheep, he was prepared to face the battle against Goliath, knowing that God is the one who has always given Him the strength to win.

God may be telling us to do something and we've been ignoring it for any amount of time. When we listen to Him with a willingness to obey, He forgives us for running away and gives us another chance to do what He's asking us to do. It is better to live in obedience and bring life to others around us than to live in sin and negatively affect everyone else.

God created us as part of His plan to bring Himself glory when we become His children. We may not know all of His plans for us, but we can know our purpose and follow Christ so that our lives have meaning here on earth before we spend eternity with Him in Heaven.

The devil is after destroying our lives, sometimes even to the point of contemplating suicide. Jesus offers us a complete release from our old lives to step into a whole new life with Him as He lives in and through us, but we must first die spiritually so that we can yield ourselves completely to Him and His leading.

The Bible is clear that we face battles constantly that are unseen and in the spiritual realm. We must acknowledge the powers that are fighting against us as well as those fighting for us. When we submit to God, He gives us all we need to fight, and He uses us to help others fight, as well.

God has designed His Church to have shepherds that lead the flock and protect them from wolves whose only intention is to devour them. When we plug into a church and submit to its godly authority, we have leadership and protection that is necessary for ourselves and to help us pull others in.

When we invest in and love other people in God's family, we are showing the world what the Church is supposed to look like. Everyone needs a place to belong, and they need to see that they can belong in God's family.

Today's society amplifies the idea that we should all be happy, and if our marriage relationship is not making us happy then we have the right to leave it. The Bible teaches that marriage is a covenant, not a contract, and is not based on happiness but rather on commitment to see it through to death. The only way this works well is when both the men and the women are committed to God so that the men, being led by God, can lead the women who willingly submit to his leadership.

We often find ourselves feeling guilty and condemning ourselves because of our sin, but Jesus' death on the cross made a way for us to live without guilt and shame. Receiving His gift of eternal life does not mean that we will never sin again, but instead it means that we are forgiven and we can look up with hope instead of down in shame.

Jesus is described in the Bible as the Way, the only Way to God the Father. Instead of being in the way as a hindrance to ourselves and others for finding real relationship with God, we need to put our excuses aside and live in the Way, in Christ, so that we can lead others to Him as well.

We can all look back on our lives and see that God has provided all we have needed time and time again, yet we still find it difficult to trust Him. Rather than sitting around being comfortable our whole lives, we need to hear whatever God is calling us to do and step out and do it. Just as a loving father will catch their child every time when that child jumps from a high branch, we can trust that God will catch us every time we take a leap of faith.

Adam and Eve screwed everything up in the Garden of Eden when they decided to sin and eat of the tree God had commanded them not to eat from. Sin continued in the world, yet in the midst of all of the mess we've made God had a plan all along that His own Son would be born into this world, take on human form and be the perfect sacrifice to pay for all of our sins so that we may be restored to a perfect relationship with God Himself.

The Bible talks about the value of a virtuous woman, and for a man to find one he must pursue virtue himself through Christ. When a woman is found to be virtuous and honoring God in the way she cares for her family, she should be publicly recognized by each of her family members.

We see on TV the mansions and houses of rich people but the truth is that the most expensive “Crib” on the planet is us as believers.  God gave His Son so that He can take residence in us even though our lives are messy.  That is exactly how God wants us to come to Him so that He can do the work to make us clean.

The devil started his entire interaction with human beings by planting seeds of doubt for what God really said. Throughout Biblical history people have had to come to a place where they choose to keep doubting or trust and believe. We must do the same, allowing ourselves to bring our questions to God and then coming to a place of deciding what we will put our faith into.

We live in a fallen world where racism, sexism, prejudice and other sins are commonplace, yet God calls us to take of the lens of the world and see each person equally. We may have different responsibilities, but every one of us was created in God's image and has value given to us by Him.

Too many people think that once they are saved their lives should be all good from then on. The reality is that sanctification kicks in and begins undoing our lives in such a way that tears out all the unnecessary parts so that God can rebuild us to best please Him.

It's easy to overlook new Christians and put expectations on them to live and act in certain ways. They will not meet those expectations because they are just baby Christians and they need our help and guidance by feeding them spiritual milk until they are ready for solid food.

Too many Christians live off of the frozen fruit in their lives, acting like religious believers but not having God's work actively present in changing them from the inside out. When we stay connected to Him, as a branch is connected to the vine, He does all the work in our lives that continues to produce fresh spiritual fruit.

It does not matter where we've come from and the mistakes that we've made in the past. God wants to give us a new life and write a new story for our future if we would just give our lives over to Him.

We need to be fully present where God has placed us and focused on where He is moving us forward. Rather than being like a fish who jumps out of an aquarium because they think it's better on the other side, we need to be content where God has put us because it is there that He provides all that we need.