Richard Ellis Talks

Jesus was willing to leave Heaven, come into a sin filled world, live a perfect life, die for our sins, and be raised from the dead all so that we could have access to relationship and eternal life with God. If that’s what He was willing to do for us, what are we willing to do to reach other people with this Good News?

Just as the crowds in the Gospels worshipped Jesus one day and the next day turned on Him to crucify Him, we can receive His salvation and mock His grace. When we continue to live a life of sin, we proclaim Jesus to be our Savior but not the Lord of our lives. His forgiveness is always there, but we must not be so fickle to praise Him one day and crucify Him the next.

God designed His Church to live in community with one another as one Body. When one part is hurting then the whole Body needs to hurt and weep with that part, and when another part is rejoicing then the whole Body needs to celebrate. This is the mark of a truly healthy group of believers.

Scripture says that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. Just as in every situation He was led by the Spirit, we must also live our lives led by the Spirit so that in every step we are portraying Christ who lives in us.

There are plenty of people praying for themselves or for others that God would send help, and we are that help that God sends but we have to be listening to His calling and respond in obedience. Following Jesus means being willing to give up whatever it takes to reach others with the Gospel before it’s too late.

God offers us a free gift of salvation to anyone who will believe, and we all have just as much opportunity to take Him up on the offer and be saved. The other part of that is His offer to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Jesus, and that is a road far less traveled but even more rewarding.

When it comes to obeying God in what He has called us to do, it is not something that happens once and we’re done; it is an every day pursuit. God has invited us to ask Him for anything according to His will, and so when we ask Him for something we must continue to ask Him with perseverance.

Just like we can sow seed into the ground and expect it to grow what we planted, we can sow spiritual seed into the lives of others through both the Gospel and our giving. The sowing of seed is our job, but as a farmer has no control over the weather to produce the growth of the seed, it is only in God’s control of how He decides to grow what has been planted.

Whatever is in our hearts will eventually come out of our mouths. We must fill our hearts with God’s truth from Scripture so that when He presents us with an opportunity to speak to someone else about Him the things that we say will have His power behind it and it will make a change in their lives.

We all face difficulties in our lives when life seems to be mean, but we always have a choice on how we will handle it. If we trust God in the meantime and focus on His purpose for allowing those times, we are filled with His sustaining peace and joy and He is able to use us to reach others.