0
items
$0
Faith, Not Fear
The Baptism of Jesus
Continuing our tour through Luke, we see Jesus and John are both grown now and John is preaching for people to turn away from trusting themselves or this world, and to turn toward trusting God. Get ready for the kingdom of God to come and reign over all of creation. He calls for people to come and cleanse themselves in the river as a sign of their cleansing from rebellion against God, and among the crowd that comes is Jesus. Why would Jesus get baptized? Why would the Savior need cleansing? Why would the King need to prepare for the kingdom?
A Certain Savior
This is the week! We’ve spent all month pointing toward the coming King Jesus, and this week we celebrate that he did indeed come. The God of the universe, the Creator of all things, the King of everything, has come into this world. He has come to you and I. He has come to rescue. It's our prayer that you would see the beautiful rescue of Christmas this week - and that that is what would shine through all the excitement of presents and the hurriedness of our culture.
A Certain Trust
The Christmas season is a time of looking forward to all kinds of things; presents, treats, time with family, time off from school or work. This story takes us to a time when God’s people were looking forward to His rescue and salvation. Still, when the time had come for this news, it was almost too good to be true. What is your response when you hear the good news of God?
Be Wise
A little folly brings great destruction, while a little wisdom can bring great joy and strength. As we continue in chapters 9 and 10 of Ecclesiastes, the Preacher shows how even though the wise and foolish both share the same fate of death, it is much better to live wisely during your days under the sun.
A Life Satisfied in God
This week we consider a big chunk of Scripture, looking at Ecclesiastes 5:8-6:9. We learn that we should not be surprised to see injustice and oppression in this life. Ecclesiastes warns us that living for things that only money can buy is vanity. Power and wealth is not enough for a satisfying life that really matters! Ecclesiastes tells us that we must learn to enjoy what God has provided, rejoicing in the life he gives—a life where he is at the center. A life lived with God is a life that is satisfied in God!
A Life of Worship
Ecclesiastes takes us to our right posture in our most essential relationship—that with God. Through the image of a “fool,” the text helps us see our utter inadequacy before our holy God and encourages a right posture in our approach to his perfection. We learn what a life of worship should look like.
Time After Time
In the chaos, disappointment, and unknowns of the whirlwind of our ever-changing world, the first part of Ecclesiastes ends as we see purpose and peace in God’s plan. Every season of our lives are His; the work of our hands is from Him; His plan endures; and He has put eternity in our hearts. In this knowledge, we have hope, we take pleasure in our lives, and we find God!
What Does a Person Gain?
Is all of life meaningless? Is all our work just endless toil, sweat and weariness? What do we gain from all we do day in and day out? Have you ever asked these questions? The Preacher of Ecclesiastes did! Faced with the seemingly vanity of life, the Preacher invites us to examine our own existence under the weight of weary work and selfish gain. Is there any hope for us living here “under the sun?”
Introduction to Ecclesiastes
By being honest about life’s troubles, Ecclesiastes touches the hearts of people who struggle. As much as anything else, Ecclesiastes is for people who have their doubts about God but can’t stop thinking about him. It is a book in which we keep struggling with the problems of life and, as we struggle, we learn to trust God with the questions even when we do not have all the answers. Ecclesiastes powerfully communicates how human life is meaningless without God at the center. Ecclesiastes speaks to a world that is looking for satisfaction in wealth, relationships, vocation and pleasure, and points people to the one and only God who alone gives true satisfaction and joy.
Why We Do What We Do
4 Essential Questions for Our Children
If we are going to live out of our true identity as a family of missionary servants, then we must steward the children God has blessed us with to take up their role in the Missio Dei. Imagine what would it look like for us and our kids to embrace a Story for their lives in Who is God, What has God done, Who are we, How are we to live.
Psalm 139
The book of Psalms records every emotion that has ever struck the human heart. Love; anger; fear; hurt; sadness; depression; joy--it's all there. We turn to the psalms because it address the full spectrum of human needs. In these one hundred and fifty songs we find direction for our lives and comfort for dark times. This ancient hymnal of praise speaks to us in ways that affect us beyond words. We take this week to dig into Psalm 139 to see that we find our significance when we see how significant we are to God.
Yours is the Kingdom
This concluding doxology chimes in exactly with the message of the prayer as a whole: God's kingdom, God's power, and God's glory are what it's all about. To pray this prayer is to pray that God's kingdom may be seen in all the world as they see the glory of Jesus the Messiah. It is because God is King, and has become King in Jesus, that we can pray this prayer with confidence.
Missio 10-Year Celebration
Missio Dei Peoria is one of four congregations that makes up the Missio Dei Communities Family. This past Sunday the entire Missio Family gathered to celebrate all that God has done the past 10 years in and through Missio to saturate our cities with the good news of Jesus!
Give Us This Day
Daily needs and desires point beyond themselves to God's promise of the kingdom in which death and sorrow will be no more. The promise of the kingdom includes our daily needs and desires, and this prayer asks for our desires to be satisfied in God's way and God's time. This prayer urges us to pray with the wider Christian family, and human family, standing alongside the hungry and praying on their behalf. It is a prayer for the complete fulfillment of God's kingdom: for God's people to be rescued from hunger, guilt and fear.
Your Kingdom Come
The second main petition of the Lord's Prayer rules out any idea that the Kingdom of God is a purely heavenly reality. "Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." When we pray this Kingdom-prayer we are praying, as Jesus was praying and acting, for the redemption of the world; for the radical defeat of evil; for heaven and earth to be married at last; for God to be all in all. We pray this for the world, and we pray this for the church.
Live a Life of Prayer
James finishes his letter with a call to prayer. Although it may seem unexpected, it is totally appropriate when we think that in order to become "perfect and complete" we must rely on God's power. Prayer is reliance on God's power! When we embody this truth ourselves, we become a community of prayer and praise in a world of self-sufficiency and entitlement. We embody the kingdom of God.
Wisdom for the Wealthy
We live in a world of economic injustice. It seems as if the 'rich get richer and the poor get poorer.' The love of money is the downfall of many in our culture, and James is quite aware of this. Money has the potential to cause us to ignore God and to become indifferent to the needs of the least, lost and left-out. The question the Christian community must wrestle with is this: has our wealth blinded us to the things of God? The wealth we are given is to be shared with those in need. As we live in this way, we reflect the kingdom of God that exalts the poor and humble.