Viewing entries tagged
Freedom
Although there is freedom in Christ, the unmerciful Christian is unable to walk in the full experience of this. This sermon exhorts us to examine our hearts and our actions so that mercy pervades our daily lives and we can receive the new mercies of God every morning. You will see that the biblical language for mercy implies both practical compassion for those in need, as well as forgiveness for those who have done wrong, and you will be inspired to pursue these in your life.
If you’re doing anything significant, criticism will come; that’s why we need to be prepared for it and know how to handle it. You may not be able to stop criticism from coming but you do have a choice as to how you respond. This practical sermon illuminates four biblical principles that show you how to make criticism work for you instead of against you. As you learn what to do with accurate criticism, inaccurate criticism and malicious criticism, you’ll be able to harness all types of criticism in such a way that it propels you forward into God’s future for your life.
You can’t always control what’s handed to you but you can control what you do with it. Offence in life is inevitable but staying offended is a choice; in many ways your response to offence will determine your future. This sermon exposes offence as the bait of Satan and shows how to handle the offences that arise in a way that builds us up instead of destroying us.
In this message our guest Dr Robin Lawrence - a respected Harley Street psychiatrist - sheds personal, physiological and biblical insight on anxiety and depression. His fascinating talk will illuminate, educate and encourage anyone who has suffered with anxiety or depression or who has a family member or friend who has suffered similarly.
Shame is an insidious and powerful feeling that distorts our sense of self and leaves us believing we are defective. These beliefs are at complete odds with how God made us and sees us. In this message, professional Christian counsellor and guest speaker Kay Lawrence looks at healthy shame vs toxic shame; the manifestations of shame and how to change the script. Perfectionism, procrastination and self-sabotage are not your portion. You are not an imposter - you are a child of God.
Many people carry wounds deep in their soul; if not dealt with these can seriously impinge on the quality of our lives and prevent us from moving forward into our God-given destiny. This sermon shows how to be emotionally healthy instead of struggling through life with damaged emotions. You will learn how to identify the messages of negativity and false beliefs in your inner narrative and replace them with the truth of who you are in Christ.
God created us body, soul and spirit and His heart is that we are made whole in all areas. This sermon looks at one of Jesus’ healing miracles and shows how Jesus’ concern was with physical, emotional and spiritual healing. Whether we are currently going through struggles or not, we can be confident that in Jesus, we stand on the promise of true restoration and complete wholeness.
Emotions are a beautiful, God-given part of our human nature which add richness to life; however they will lead you every which way if you let them rule you. Too many people make the mistake of living solely by their feelings but whilst we shouldn’t deny our emotions we can’t rely on them either. This sermon explains the purpose of emotions as gauges not guides and shows us how to master our emotions instead of them mastering us. The listener is reminded that with the Holy Spirit’s help we can do right even when we feel wrong.
The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant reminds us that God’s forgiveness is a gift of grace that sets us free. By demonstrating such grace to others we can live free and whole too; otherwise the cost of not showing such mercy is just far too high. This sermon shows us how to live in God's gracious plan for our lives instead of being held captive by unforgiveness.
Do you know how to praise God in your midnight hour? Paul and Silas did; as they faced one of their darkest times, they chose not to complain but instead to pray and to praise - and they literally prayed and praised their way to deliverance! An atmosphere of praise - especially when created together with other believers - repels the enemy and attracts the presence of God. Be encouraged as you learn why and how to lift up your voice to God in the toughest times of life. Your song in the midnight shows what you really believe about God; it has the potential not only to set you free but others too!
In so many ways your words have the power to create the reality in which you live. In fact, you are planting seeds each time you talk; you are giving life to what you’re saying and eventually you’re going to eat the fruit of that! So often we unwittingly call in bad things into our lives because of our negative words. This sermon shows you how to harness the incredible potential of the tongue to speak faith-filled words that carry God's life-giving power into every sphere of your life. You will learn how to prophesy God's best into your future by putting God's Word into your mouth.
When a doctor wants to check the health of a patient, she will often check the eyes with a flashlight and the ears with an otoscope. Our eyes and ears are vital to our spiritual health too, for these are the key gateways through which thoughts come into our mind in the first place. What gets your mind ultimately gets you; what you allow in makes its way out into your words, actions and habits. This is why it's important you exercise control over your eyes and ears through the guarding of these gates and the feeding of your mind with a good, wholesome, godly diet. This sermon shows and inspires you how to do just that!
What we think affects everything! Our thoughts have the power to either help us or hurt us, for where your mind goes, you follow. This means that if you want to have a better life, you need to have better thinking. This sermon shows you how to win on the battlefield of the mind by laying aside negative thoughts and choosing to put on godly thoughts. You will learn how to overcome Satan's attacks by bringing the mind into submission to God's Word and also discover how to advance the purposes of God through your thought life rather than aiding and abetting the enemy.
At times we can’t see the new thing that God is doing because we have become blinded by the past. That’s why we need to change our perspective – for God is far more interested in our future than He is in our past. You may feel like your past has turned your life into a wasteland but in that very desert place we believe God wants to release new life.
This sermon was delivered on the occasion of One’s Church first Sunday in our new meeting venue, The Hewett Academy. This relocation marks a new era for One Church as God gives us a new wineskin to receive the new wine that He wants to pour out in these days.
As Christians we are not called to live in regret, we are called to a life of restoration. God's promise is that He will restore and the amazing thing is that God’s restoration is not to how we were before, it’s better. God restores more, God restores in abundance! God's heart is that we are restored to His original plan for all areas of our lives. When you’ve been knocked down to your knees, God doesn’t just get you up on your feet, He sets your feet dancing!
Many people carry guilt for failures that God has already forgiven them for. Instead of looking down in shame, we can look up to the God who is the lifter of our heads, standing in our identity as forgiven people. Instead of looking inwards at our past mistakes, we can look outwards and walk in our calling to bring God’s kingdom in. Instead of looking back at our past, we can look forward knowing that with God our past doesn’t define our future.
Extending forgiveness may be one of the hardest things you’ll ever have to do – but there is a breakthrough on the other side of that decision. Forgiveness cannot re-write the past but it does make it possible to pen a new and better future. Hurt people hurt people; forgiven people forgive people. This message will help you to understand the characteristics and consequences of true forgiveness.
We can’t choose the treatment we receive but we can choose our response: we can choose forgiveness. We can choose forgiveness that isn’t based on the other person’s repentance, that doesn’t excuse the behaviour and that recognises forgiveness may be something we have to repeatedly choose. We can choose to cancel the debt that is owed us, knowing all this is possible with God.
No matter how big our hurt is, our God is bigger. No matter how deep our pain is, God’s love is deeper. No matter how strong the hold that unforgiveness has on us, our God is stronger. Today we can choose to forgive unjust treatment and experience true freedom.
People may have attacked us, abused us, betrayed us, cheated us, mistreated us, ridiculed us and violated us; they may have done it deliberately, maliciously, viciously and even repeatedly – and without remorse. This can cause us deep pain – a pain we don’t make light of and a pain that God understands. But God commands us to forgive them. This is not easy – but we can do it with the Spirit’s help. In commanding us to forgive, God actually has our best interests at heart; the failure to forgive is a devastating and torturous form of self-destruction. When you forgive, you are the true beneficiary. This message brings home the point that to forgive is to set a prisoner free and to discover that, all along, that prisoner was in fact you.
Many of us tend to retreat when faced with a giant – a big challenge. But David – because he first faced God – rushed towards the giant Goliath. Like David we all face giants that taunt or threaten us; they may not be called Goliath but they are called unemployment, debt, rejection, discouragement, failure, addiction, disease and such like. This sermon will inspire you to reload and, with God’s help, to take a fresh swing at the problems, obstacles and burdens that stand before us.
