Richard Ellis Talks

When we face difficulties in our lives, it’s easy to want to go back to the past when life seemed easier. God wants to use those difficulties to grow our faith in Him so that we can receive His spiritual blessings that we would never have if we went back.

While the world tells us to hate our enemies, hold grudges, and sin in this way or that way, Jesus tells us to live backwards according to the world’s standards. The only way we can do this is when He is living in us, and when we live this way we realize that we are really living forwards in the way He designed us to live.

Everybody likes to be encouraged and praised, not just for things they’ve done but for who they are. If we think about saying something encouraging to another person, we should not hesitate to say it, whether or not it is reciprocated. Most importantly, for who He is and all God has done for each of us, praising Him should be done endlessly as He is deserving of it all.

When we are faced with a sudden crisis we have the option to respond in despair or respond in worship to God. Trials will come, and while we walk through them with Him, we need to keep our eyes looking up because Jesus promised that He would come back for us suddenly out of the blue.

The Bible instructs us to seek God first and foremost, putting aside any other distraction from our minds and hearts. Once we are in that kind of relationship with Him where He is all we want, He will put things on our hearts to ask for and has told us to ask Him with boldness and persistence.

Sometimes it feels like God is hiding from us when really we’re the ones trying to hide from Him. Instead of continuing in our sin, we need to seek after Him with our whole hearts and find that His promise is true that He will be found.

When Jesus lives inside of us, we often neglect cleaning house for Him because it can get very messy sorting through our lives. What we need to do, rather than making the outside look clean by doing all the right things, is clean our house from the inside out so that the things that truly matter in our heart can be made clean forever.

Instead of being content with a ticket to Heaven, we need to seek God to give us more and more of Himself on this earth. He offers us so much more than the gift of salvation, but we must seek Him, putting Him first above all things, and let Him deepen our wisdom and understanding to fuel our passion and purpose in living for Him.

When we focus on the attack that is coming at us from the devil, we lose sight of the God we serve who is more powerful and has promised to protect us. As Christians, God lives in us and He has the power to fight anything that may come against us if we would just call out to Him and obey what He says to do.

The taming of one’s tongue comes from the Holy Spirit, otherwise we may not always say something but we still think negative things that we will eventually say the more we think them. Rather than trying in our own efforts to tame our tongue, we should work on growing in relationship with God so that He can tame us over time.

The easiest response to boredom or even suffering is to move on to the next thing rather than sticking with it, whether it’s relationships, jobs, or church. When God calls us to stay in something, He gives us the power to do it and others benefit from our perseverance.

We may not be chosen to die a physical death for Christ’s sake, but everyday we are called to die to ourselves, take up our cross and live for Him. We must ask ourselves if we’re really willing to take a stand for Christ no matter the cost. If the answer is yes, no price we must pay can compare to the victory we celebrate in Heaven.

It is not sinful to be upset about something, but how we handle it can be sinful. When we try to control ourselves we end up out of control, but when we give ourselves to God and allow Him to put His peace, love, and joy in us then we can respond righteously.

This life is full of moments of suffering, but none of it is outside of God’s hand to purposefully use it for His greater purpose. God is for us, and we can look to Him with trust and faith despite any of our circumstances, knowing that He will always be with us and fulfill His promises to us.

Everyone faces difficulties, and that is why God has designed the community of His Church to respond to those struggles in such a way that encourages and comforts those who are struggling. The mature believers are ones who have patience with those who fall because they can look in their past when someone else helped them.

Although we may feel like there is nothing special about us, God has made us special and is simply looking for us to be available for Him to use us in extraordinary ways. When Jesus lives inside of us, we are meant to do amazing things because it is not us doing those things but rather Him doing them through us.

Often times, God will mess up our plans to put us in contact with lost people in this world who need to hear about Him. When we live our lives in obedience to God, seeing His hand at work instead of the inconvenience of our changed plans, we will be amazed at how He will use us to reach the lost.

It’s easy to thank God for how He’s blessed us and go on about our lives without taking the time to look around and see how we can help others. As the Body of Christ, we are called to reach out and help all those in need that we come in contact with. We must have eyes to see the needs and willingness to follow through in meeting those needs.

It’s easy to get caught up in thinking that we’ll just be happy when we get this thing or that thing. Instead, it’s about our mindset exactly where we are, choosing to trust and rejoice in the Lord no matter what season of life we are in.

God has made us for a purpose, but when we give into the sin struggles that the devil uses to sabotage us, we get off course and often create a lot of unnecessary damage. The worst form of sabotage is suicide because there is no coming back from that here on earth and it ends a life that God may have had many more redeeming plans for.

Instead of being shocked when God does what He told us He would, we can look back and see how He has always been faithful and then trust that He hasn’t changed. When God tells us to ask Him for something, we need to ask and rest in the assurance knowing that He will do what He said.

Because God is so holy, He had to remain separated from His people because of their sins before Christ. It was Jesus’ perfect sacrifice of His death on the cross that broke the barrier between us and God so that now we can have access to God at anytime and any place and we can approach Him boldly.

The Bible is like God’s valentine to us that tells us of His love. He picked each of us to be His, and Jesus’ death on the cross made that possible, so now it is our turn to make the decision to belong to Him for all eternity and experience His joy, peace and forgiveness.

We are not promised an exemption from the pains and suffering of this world, but we are promised hope within which we can grieve during those times. The hope comes only from Christ who redeems all things.

Believing the limitations the devil tells us about ourselves keeps us from obeying God in the amazing work He invites us into. When we keep our eyes on Him, trusting that He can do anything with and through us, we will be amazed at what He can accomplish in and around us.

No matter what trial we are facing, we must remember to keep our faith and trust in God to the end because that is what will make our lives count. We can live our lives making easy choices without having any impact, or we can run the race, giving it our best, and make our lives count for God.

Rather than living to please ourselves, God has called us to please Him. Too often we question what He asks of us, or simply choose to ignore Him and please ourselves. The only pleasure we will find in life is when we live to please Him.

We may or may not have every reason to complain about the difficulties we face, but regardless of our circumstances we need to choose to trust God and not complain about what’s going on. We can pray and ask Him to change things, but ultimately our joy comes from Him and so we need not complain.

Sin keeps us leaning towards testing the rules and breaking the laws. The laws were put in place to reveal our sin to us, but Jesus died so that we do not have to live under the weight of the law in our own strength. When we live in relationship with Him and follow in the steps of the Spirit, we no longer consistently check off the list of rules but instead find ourselves living freely within the boundaries God set for us.

Too many people stand in their pride and defiance to turn to God and submit their lives to Him. The truth is that everyone will ultimately submit to God, but we must not wait until eternity to do so. When we submit our lives to Him here on earth He is able to live out His good plan and purpose for us.

As Christians, the best way we can live out our lives is every day starting out asking God to use us and listen for His voice. He will lead our every step, and when we follow Him we can see Him work in and through us to change the world.

Rather than trying to act like Jesus, we need to let Him live in and through us, acknowledging Him as our Lord, not just our Savior. Jesus comes to live inside of us when we become Christians, but more than a ticket to Heaven, it’s about letting Him be more and more Himself in our lives.

We tend to want to go to a church that is full of people who look right and know how to act right. Jesus came to seek the lost, and if we are going to follow Him that means we are going to encounter lost people whose lives are a mess. Rather than shy away from the mess of this world, we can introduce them to the Savior who came to offer hope and salvation.

The most important thing in life is not to do a bunch of good, even religious things, but rather it is to spend time building our relationship with Jesus. Life can get plenty busy and we can be easily distracted, but we must make sure to stop what we’re doing to sit at Jesus’ feet and just listen to what He might have to say to us.

The Bible is very clear about how God’s people are supposed to give financially to His Church, as well as how that money is to be used. When we give begrudgingly, God is not pleased with our money. It is when we give cheerfully because we love Him that He is pleased with our gift and promises to always take care of all of our needs.

Many days we may not feel like we have the energy or the desire to witness to others and share the Gospel with people we encounter. Regardless of how our lives may be going in the moment or the season we’re in, God has called us all to be ready to be put in the game when He prompts us to speak up.

We often long for things out of the ordinary, yet the Christian life is meant to be lived on an everyday basis. There will be times of trials and struggles, when life is pressing hard on us, but the hope is that God has promised that we will never be crushed.

When we have a growing relationship with God, He compels us to do things and live a certain way that may seem crazy to the world but makes sense to Him. We need to make sure that our motivation for everything we do comes from God, for His purpose and to bring Him glory.

Abortion has become another form of birth control, but the Bible is very clear on its stance about life and innocent blood. No matter what choices and mistakes we have made in the past, God offers us abundant life in Him and we can accept His forgiveness, mercy and grace, but first we must accept the truth of our sin.

God has promised that He will always take care of us, so there is nothing in this world that we should have any reason to fear. Rather than allowing the devil to lock us down in fearful dread, we should instead allow God’s love to unlock us from that bondage.