Richard Ellis Talks

Jesus lived a sinless life, died on the cross, was buried and resurrected from the dead. He offers to us eternal life that He paid for by His sacrifice and made possible by His resurrection. We must now decide to either accept His offer and follow Him or reject it and die spiritually forever when our earthly bodies die.

Jesus was God forsaken when He submitted to His death on the cross so that we could be in right standing with God and never be forsaken. Not only does His death give us eternal life, but it puts us in right relationship with God so that He can help us walk through the trials and difficulties of everyday life.

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.

The Bible tells us that God picked us to be in relationship with and follow Him, just like Jesus picked His disciples while here on earth. Rather than seeing all the reasons why we should not be chosen, we need to accept God’s love for us and live in obedience to Him.

God can choose anyone He wants to exalt to a position of leadership, but whether He chooses us for that or not we must remember that our lives are meant to magnify Him. When others look at our lives they should see God’s greatness through the hope that we cling to in all circumstances.

The Bible is replete with verses about the words that we say, instructing us to use wisdom in everything that comes out of our mouths. Whether it’s true or not, our job is to edify and speak in love, building each other up rather than tearing each other down.

Not many people have something in their life that they would die for. In a relationship with Jesus Christ He desires a commitment from us that we give our whole lives to Him. The Bible teaches that we are to be a living sacrifice to God, living and doing all things for Him.

The idea of Fat Tuesday is to party hard and get sin out of our system before seeking forgiveness on Ash Wednesday and moving into Lent. The Christian life does not work this way because all sin has consequence. Although God forgives us, we must strive to live a life that is obedient to Him at all times, making nothing else an idol.

Anything that we build our lives on other than Jesus Christ is a sham and we will crumble when trials come. Suffering is an inevitable part of life, but when Christ is our foundation rather than any other person, material or habit, He gives us the strength to stand firm against the crushing waves of life.

The Christian life is about constant pursuit of God through Scripture and gathering together as believers. Instead of letting the change He’s made in our lives fade out and get to a point of rejecting Him, we must be intentional about not going back to our old lives and instead pressing on to learn about Him more and allow Him to continue molding and shaping us.

God says that He would rather us be hot or cold instead of lukewarm, meaning that we either jump in relationship with Him and grow or run away. The way that we live our lives impacts the world around us, and God has us hear to reach others for His Kingdom. The only way that we will reach others is when God is working in us and through us and people can see a difference in our lives.