Lake Highlands Church

Are we relating to our high priest the way Abram did?  Are we feasting on his presence?  Are we seeing life from His perspective?  Are we receiving His blessing?  Are we giving to Him out of the abundance that God has given us?  We need to recognize the glory of having a Melchizedekian priest. Scripture reading: Genesis 14:17-20; Psalm 110:1-4; Hebrews 7

Is our growth academic or is it real?  The problem that most of us face is that our growth is academic.  We read our Bible, we go to church, we go to Bible studies; we’ve got it all up here, but we are unwilling to do what it takes to get it into our lives. If we want to see real growth in our lives, it’s going to happen through being tested. Scripture reading: Genesis 14

No failure is permanent.  We can go back to the cross of Jesus Christ and receive the grace and mercy of God offered through him.  And, by God’s grace, when we find ourselves in a situation where we are tempted again, if we hold on to God and His promises we can overcome.  In times of testing, the question to ask is not, “How can I get out of this?” but rather “What can I get out of this?”  God is at work building your faith. Scripture reading: Genesis 12:10-13:4

Scripture reading: Genesis 12:1-9

We can’t allow ourselves to be seduced by the world-building for ourselves, trying to make a name for ourselves.  If we do, if we rebel (like Nimrod) trying to create our own gate to God, we too will be scattered.  We must trust in the only One who is the way to God—Jesus. Scripture reading: Gen 10:8-12; 11:1-9

Only God has the ability to say “never” and live up to His word. God has provided a way to escape judgement: the way of sacrifice. And through that sacrifice—Jesus—God says, “whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst,” “he who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty;” “If a man keeps my word, he will never see death;” “I know my sheep. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.” He says, “never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”   Scripture reading: Genesis 6:1-9:17

Easter Sunday 2021

The power of God's word through Scripture is his gift of revelation to us. It is crucial in helping us know him, to know ourselves, and to walk out a life of love in a broken world.    Scripture reading: Luke 24:25-27

Why do we serve? Christians serve because Jesus was a servant. Jesus viewed himself as the fulfillment of God’s promises that a servant would come and bring the kingdom. Jesus served us by healing the sick, feeding the hungry, and by his great love for us in his self-sacrificial death. After being humbled unto death, Jesus was exalted. In the kingdom, we follow the path of service if we want to be exalted.   Scripture reading: Isaiah 42:1-9, Philippians 2:3-11, Matthew 20:25-28

The power of repentance is that it clears the obstructions in our relationship with God allows us to take a giant step toward wholeness and health; toward the full and abundant life that Jesus came to give us. And we can have confidence that a prayer of confession God will always answer, with guaranteed forgiveness. Scripture reading: Ezra 9:1-15

Scripture reading: Romans 12:2, ll Chronicles 7:11-16, l Chronicles 4:9-10

The reason we give up things, things that are pleasurable, is not so that we somehow earn favor with God, but it is so that we re-orient our lives and get intentional about our relationship with God.  We give up a pleasure for a brief time in order to allow God to replace that pleasure with Himself.   Scripture reading: various

With the first Adam came the curse, but the last Adam, the offspring of the woman, Jesus, came and bore the curse for us on the cross so that we could be born again, into the family of God.   Scripture reading: Genesis 3:7-24

Too often we listen to voices that do not have our best interest in mind.  The voice we need to have our ears trained to hear is the voice of our loving creator who will always call us into fellowship and freedom.   Scripture reading: Genesis 3:1-13

This is about more than marriage; this is about the dynamics of humanity…that we need both male and female perspective, male and female gifting.  It is about community. Scripture reading: Genesis 2:18-25

For 5 and a  half days God created and filled the earth, but if he had stopped there all he would have had was a greenhouse and a zoo.  But God wanted someone to be in relationship with—to be love and be loved by—so he created humanity, in his image, giving them provision and purpose and privilege and prerogative.   Scripture reading: Genesis 1:26-31; 2:4-9

The Jewish day doesn’t begin in the morning, as we westerners tend to think; the Jewish day begins at sunset.  The mindset is, your day doesn’t begin with production; your day begins with resting.  The idea is, your identity lies in who you are (as created by God), not in what you do. Scripture Reading: Genesis 1:31-2:3

We don’t like to forgive because we think it’s weak; Jesus says that it is divine.  We don’t like to forgive because we think that there will be no justice and evil will prevail; Jesus says that vengeance is God’s responsibility.  We don’t like to forgive because we think that if we do it will diminish us; Jesus says, not only will you not be diminished, but you will be refilled to overflowing.  At the end of the day, you can never know the surpassing greatness of the grace of God until you are empty. Scripture reading: Luke 6:27-38

The things that Jesus proclaimed in the “Sermon on the Plain” sound like impossible ideals given by some out-of-touch mystic, but they are actually pragmatic truths proclaimed by a down-to-earth realist.  Jesus knew how life works, both in the Kingdom of Heaven and in the kingdom of this world.  Jesus himself embodied these truths and showed us that living them is the way to full, abundant life. Scripture reading: Luke 6:17-26

It is one thing to believe something, it is another thing to quote scripture about what you believe, but when push comes to shove and when your life is on the line and the powers that be are against you, will you back up your words with your life?   Scripture reading: Luke 6:1-11