Devotions (Page 21)

It’s one thing to sing along to a catchy worship song about agreeing to “Make Room” for God and it’s another thing, entirely, to truly surrender ourselves to whatever it is that God is directing us towards… In Jeremiah 29, we read about a letter that is sent from Jeremiah (aka, from God) to the people of Israel who had been exiled from Jerusalem to Babylon. When you imagine the relief of hearing directly from God in a place of…

1 Corinthians 12:18-20“God has placed each part in the body just as he wanted it to be. If all the parts were the same, how could there be a body? As it is, there are many parts. But there is only one body.“ There is an old saying, “variety is the spice of life.” This idea applies to many things in life, but for me, it makes a lot of sense when it comes to food. I enjoy tasting different kinds of…

Lately in KidzHarbour as we’ve been working our way through a curriculum called Abide, we’ve been learning about how we can respond in scary situations. Sometimes when we feel overwhelmed or anxious, just like when we feel scared, we can make decisions that aren’t actually the best for us. They help us out by giving us the acronym STAR, which stands for: Stop! Don’t try to fix anything Take a deep breath and calm down Appreciate and connect with Jesus…

“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.“1 John 3:16-18 Chapter 1:On September 12,…

While I was listening to Auntie Leona’s message from this Sunday, the two things that caught my ear were “We need to use what we’ve learned” and “Are we just listening to sermons and doing discipleship but not growing?” I was reminded of James 1:22-25 – “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural…

In the old days when a king or emperor would take over a country/province, one of the first things they would do is burn their history books. If you took away their history books you would take away their past, their collective knowledge and ultimately their existence. The history books of a people group tell them about who they are, where they came from and what they went through to get to where they are today.The Bible is a prime…

What a blessing it was to hear from Leona. There were so many gems and nuggets of wisdom for all of us in the church family, no matter where you are in your walk of faith. As Leona was sharing, she concluded with 2 very powerful statements that I believe are instrumental in who we are as a Kingdom Family. Come As You Are This entire year we have been focusing on Kingdom Parenting – in our focus we sometimes…

On behalf of Gabe, Rodney, and myself I want to give my heartfelt thanks to the Lifespring family for sending us to Turkey over the past week. There was so much that God did on the trip, and we look forward to sharing these stories with you all in the coming weeks and months. To give an overview of what we did, we traveled to Turkey with the intention of exploring the possibility of refugee sponsorship and spent about a…

Dear LifeSpring Family, This past Monday, in our Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) group, we were studying the weeping prophet, Jeremiah. In all the doom and gloom of the situation that Judah and Israel found themselves, we have the famous Jeremiah 29:11 verse: For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. While the BSF group of men were discussing how many of…

This past Sunday we heard from Pastor John Park of Compassion Canada. He shared that he sponsors 4 children from 4 different countries with the goal of not only being a beacon of hope in their lives and providing tangible support but also that one day he would get a call saying that they no longer needed his support anymore. This idea of receiving a call that the person you have been sponsoring no longer needs your help is bittersweet.…

Rather than writing out my own thoughts about Good Friday or trying to come up with a genius new way to talk about how Jesus needed to lose his life in order for us to gain True Life… I want to encourage all of you to check out the Scripture passages in the Gospels that outline for us what took place. Take your time as you read through them and pay attention to the parts that stand out to you.…

Let’s say you go on a trip to the Rockies. When you arrive, you’d probably be really excited about seeing it and taking lots of pictures. In contrast, the locals, who see the Rockies from their backyard, take almost no notice of it. It’s become so normal and familiar to them that it doesn’t deserve extra attention or recognition. Similarly, we often skip parts of the Bible that we’ve heard and read many times. I’ve definitely thought, “Oh, I’ve seen…