All Saints Podcast | Believe Doubt Seek

Augustine wrote: “My heart is restless, O God, until it rests in you.” Sometimes feelings come up about following Christ that cause a certain emptiness, When we have doubts, we may ask, “is this Jesus thing working for me? Am I getting all there is out of life?” “Is this really real?”
There is a tendency to go back to something that is familiar to us from our past. We want answers about the big questions: purpose, origin, identity, relationships, and the future. When we feel doubt in the area of faith, we are going to try to put something else there.
In Colossians 2:5-16 we learn that there is a person who fills our lives with power and wholeness in a way that we can’t find anywhere else.

Following Christ is a maturity process. As we walk with Christ we are faced with challenges, choices, and disciplines. How does maturity ever happen? It comes by understanding hope.

Many paths to God? I John 4:1-10
Many people believe all religions are equal paths to God.That’s an assertion not an argument, why should one believe that?  A person might respond and say, “no one has a lock on the truth, we see pieces, no one dares to say that they see the whole picture.” The argument is all religions see parts of the truth none of them see the whole truth. No one should insist they have all the truth and that’s how we should view all religions. What do we do? How do we respond?

There are many distractions in the world, many things that pull us away from seeking, knocking, and asking good questions and maturing in the faith.
The text is telling Christ followers to “center your life on the greatness of Jesus Christ.” Why? Why not treat following Jesus as any other thing you add in your life? You are presently listening to this podcast, you may go to church, talking with friends about your faith, volunteer. Why isn’t that enough? Why does everything have to center on Jesus? It comes down to the greatness of who Jesus is.
There are many stories of people who have surrendered to Jesus and were changed radically. We are going to ask a question: what is so great about Jesus?

Please join us for a new series in the book of Colossians.
The underlining purpose of this letter, is to tell humanity that we all are seeking who we really are. We want a purposeful life, a meaningful life.
We seek for something outside of ourselves. We do this, whether belief in Christ or not.
The assumption of Christianity believes that only Jesus brings us into the fullness of self. Everything else is a poor substitute, everything else leads us away from being truly human.
Read: Colossians 1:9-14

CS Lewis said, ‘God isn’t out to make nicer people, he is out to make new people.’
As we conclude our series in Matthew 5, we are looking at the characteristic of being pure in heart.
Christian faith is not here to make human beings better, it is here to make a new model of human being. Religious people only focus on externals, not a deep transformational work that happens in internally. How can you tell?
Read Matthew 5:8
Listen to a song by Lauren Daigle called: Love like This

'Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy.' - Matthew 5:7
This becomes the basis for all our relationships because we have a relationship with Jesus which is based on mercy. Mercy is different than grace. You can have grace without mercy, but you can’t have mercy without grace. The word grace means to help someone who doesn’t deserve it.
Mercy embraces the characteristics of being generous, forgiving others, having compassion for the suffering, and providing healing of every kind. It is to be moved by somebody else’s pain to alleviate that person’s suffering. Grace without mercy is possible because you could give help to somebody who is underserving, without feeling for that person.

What does righteousness mean? It means approved, to be right with somebody, to be received, to be accepted. Jesus said, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. There is an energy that pulses through you when you are considered right, qualified, or good. There is an ache that pulses through you when you aren’t.
Where do you get your approval from?
Read Matthew 5:6, Is 55:1

New series: Blessed are you, when…
In Matthew chapter 5 Jesus delivered what has been labeled the "Kingdom Manifesto." A manifesto is where you put it all out there for people to grasp, ponder, and ultimately understand.
The Beatitudes are where Jesus introduces a new and radical philosophy of relating to Father God. Jesus taught about a loving God who loves everyone, not just veterans of faith.
Join us for the next 4 weeks as we are shocked and challenged to learn what is radically different from what we observe of religion today.

Can you relate to this? We get desperate to be insiders? We don’t want to be beautiful for beauty’s sake, we want beauty because it gives us certain access. We don’t want to be smart; we want to be smart so we can be with people who are on the inside. We want wealth because wealth gives us access to power.
What happens when we can’t get insider status? Our brokenness and pride come to the surface. That can get messy.
Read 2 Kings 5:1-15