Richard Ellis Talks

Without faith in the Gospel that characterizes every part of our lives, our spirituality can become flat. People who don’t know God are attracted to Him when we share our faith that is living in us, producing love and joy in every circumstance.

When we become Christians, Jesus’ righteousness is placed on us and our sins are all forgiven, giving us the opportunity to approach God with boldness. However, simply because our sins are all forgiven doesn’t mean we should go out and sin all the more. God still disciplines those He loves, and we should fill our lives with Scripture to fight temptation.

God has promised to provide for all of our needs, and He has always been faithful to that promise. When we take what He has given us and give it away as He leads us, His blessings come pouring in and we get to continue being part of His way of blessing others.

In the grand scheme of eternity we are here on earth for only a brief time, just as a vapor appears and disappears so quickly. Rather than wasting that precious time by following the ways of the world, we need to follow God’s call on our lives to honor Him in all that we do, remembering that not only do we represent Him to the world but we also carry Him around in us by His Spirit.

Too many Christians follow religious rules and feel good about themselves while looking down on others who are struggling. God wants a relationship with us that makes the change in our lives that He brings real to the core of our being.

Just like Jesus struck up conversation with the woman at the well, knowing her secrets and bringing her into knowing Him as Messiah anyway, we need to be looking for conversations to have with others. God already knows all of our junk that we keep hidden, but He loves and saves us anyway, desiring for us to take His love and salvation to the rest of the world.

When it comes to living God’s way, He calls us to die to ourselves and take up our cross, which is a symbol of suffering and death. The truth is that there will always be suffering and we will all die physical deaths, but we can choose to stand before God at the end and say we did it our own way or we can hear Him say if we chose His way, “Well done.”

We so often get caught up with recognition from other people and winning trophies for earthly accomplishments. Those things are not bad to have, but we should be doing everything to bring God glory, knowing that the crown He places on our head in Heaven is worth far more than anything we could obtain on earth.

God doesn’t want us to come up with extravagant words and phrases when we speak to Him. He wants us to simply come to Him in prayer as His kids. When we talk about God to other people, we should do it in a way that is easy to understand, presenting the Gospel clearly and how it’s made a difference in us.

Too often we wait for other people in the Church, especially those in authority, to step up and reach those that are lost. God has given us each specific skills, all that ultimately bring Him glory by ministering to others. Instead of waiting on someone else to do it, we need to take initiative and minister in the ways that God leads us.

Anger is a common struggle, and there are some people that seem to walk around just looking for things to get mad about. This hot headedness is not how God wants us to live. When we let His Spirit take over in our lives, His fruit of peace, joy, love, and so on are what come flooding out so that we can help others grow the same fruit in their lives.

The Holy Spirit is part of the Trinity of God that is mentioned throughout Scripture. As believers, He dwells in us and by His power can do amazing things for the Kingdom of God through us.

Jesus left His disciples with the command to spread the Gospel and make disciples of all nations, ultimately reaching everyone in the world with the Good News. This command is passed to us and seems impossible, but with God backing us up it is not impossible. We just have to focus on Him and obey what He calls us to do and He will fulfill His plans through us.

Often times we see other people who seem to have become successful and be blessed in many ways and we either get jealous or we come up with reasons why God won’t do the same for us. God may hold back monetary blessing because we wouldn’t be able to handle it, or He may be waiting to pour it out but we have to be willing to receive it. Whatever God has for us, we must be content and give Him glory.

We have all had things in our lives that we regret neglecting because of the consequences that came with that neglect. The worst thing we could ever neglect is God’s invitation to us for salvation; neglecting that invitation comes with eternal regret. The way we can handle the mess we’ve already made in our lives by the things we’ve neglected is to repent and do not neglect what God is calling us to do any longer.

The greatest two commandments are to love God and love others. We cannot do the second without first doing the first, and we cannot love God until we receive His love for us. When we are relationally aligned vertically, we can’t help but spill out that love onto anyone else we come in contact with.

A true friend is someone who mourns when you mourn and rejoices when you rejoice. This is the kind of friendships that should be among believers in the church because others will look at that relationship and believe that they can be loved and accepted as well. All friendships have to be grounded in love.

No one knows when Jesus will come again, but while we wait for His return our job is to spread the Gospel to the world. God will equip us with all that we need to fulfill His purpose on this earth, we just need to be obedient in preparing ourselves and others for Jesus’ return.

God has had a plan in place since before there was time, and He wants to use us to accomplish that plan. The work He has set up for us to do is what we must finish, pouring all of our effort and energy into it. No matter if we’ve quit for a time, we always have the option to pick up and start again so that we can finish strong.

God has given us His Spirit once we make Jesus our Lord and Savior to guide us in our everyday decisions. We need to walk with the Spirit continuously so that we are always in tune to hearing His direction and following His leading.

Since the beginning God saw that it was not good for man to be alone. He created us for community with Himself and with each other. When we live life together with others, we are held accountable and are able to grow stronger and healthier as God transforms us into the people He created us to be.

The truth about sin is that it reveals our nakedness, but a sacrifice must be had in order for us to be covered. Jesus chose to put on mankind, live amongst us, be violently beaten and hung completely exposed for our sake. When we stop running around using the temporary things of this world to seemingly cover us for a time, we will find the peace that our soul longs for.

Just as armies in the Old Testament waited for God’s leading before they went into battle, we need to wait on God to follow Him so that He can fight our battles for us and we can be conquerors. We must have faith in what we cannot see to know that God fights for us and loves us.

The world is full of temptations, and the devil is constantly offering anything we could want in return for our soul to stay dead in trespasses and sins. Jesus came and died for us, making it possible to be saved. The only way for our soul to be in eternity with God forever is by choosing to deny the temptations of this world and our flesh and follow Jesus.

Just as there is purpose for the fruit that grows on trees, there is purpose for the fruit of the Spirit that grows in us. God wants to use us to reach the world, but we are only able to be used by Him and grow fruit when we remain connected to Him in every area of our lives.

The Bible tells us that if we remain connected to God that He will work in our lives, sometimes in painful ways, to prune away the areas that are not productive. As Christians, we are to bear much fruit from His Spirit, and when others see that fruit they glorify Him.

Since Adam screwed everything up by bringing sin into the world, Jesus came and paid the price to offer us a second birth so that we may become eternally alive spiritually. When the Holy Spirit speaks to us to take Him up on this offer, we must respond and receive this gift.

God’s Spirit lives inside of us when we become Christians, and it is through the power of His Spirit that we are prompted to speak to others about the Gospel. We need to have His power turned on in our lives so that we can respond to those prompts and fulfill His purpose in and through us.

The Bible is very clear that not only did Jesus come to earth in a real body taking on real flesh, but it was also His real flesh that was resurrected from the dead. Through His victory, He offers us a new life where He can live in and through us and change the world.

Life is like the TiVo function on a TV in that God is outside of time and knows all that will happen because He’s already designed it and seen it happen. The Bible tells us about what the end times will be like and it is necessary that we heed to warnings given and share them with others.

Just like God had perfectly orchestrated the details in Esther’s life to get her in a position to save her people, God has worked in our lives to put us exactly where we are for His purpose. We must step out in obedience and share the Gospel with those around us so that we can fulfill our purpose on earth and grow His Kingdom by reaching others for His sake.

It’s easy to get busy and distracted by doing a bunch of good things, but none of it can take away from the importance of being still and sitting with Jesus. Our relationship with Him is grown when we spend time with Him and it is out of that relationship that we should serve, not the other way around.

People have struggled with doubting God since the beginning of time, even in the first sin. The goal is not to get rid of all our doubts, but rather to choose to believe despite our doubts and see God reveal Himself to us along the way, whatever our path may hold.

The story of Gideon in the Bible shows us a picture of God’s great power as He stripped away time and again what would be attributed to men’s power and made it clear that it was God’s power that led Gideon to victory. As Christians, we have no reason to fear anything we face because God’s same power that was in Gideon resides in us through the Holy Spirit.

When we live without bearing fruit, God may choose to allow crap come into our lives in order to fertilize us so that we can be useful to Him and bear fruit. He does not want us to be a vegetable and do nothing for Him, never changing or growing. When we abide in Him, we grow and change and our relationship with Him bears fruit in our lives that others can see.

Often times it’s like opening a can of worms when we talk about pain and suffering we’ve gone through. Rather than keep these things hidden away, Jesus wants to use those worms to go fishing for other hurting people. When we allow God to use our pain to reach others, His purpose gets fulfilled in our lives.

When we are not getting filled by God continually through reading His truth in Scripture, our spirits get in a place of deficit and we are vulnerable to attack. God has given us His Word so that we may take in His truth, apply it to our own lives and then share it with others. It is His truth that we can stand firmly in, but it does not help us unless we read it and understand it.

When we experience God’s forgiveness at great lengths, we find ourselves loving others all the more. The Bible encourages us to greet each other with a holy kiss, showing intimacy in a way that lets go of hatred, animosity, insecurities and indifference.

There are times when we feel as though our lives are so full of suffering that we cannot take anymore, and yet His mercy covers us and keeps us going throughout each day. Then there are times when His goodness is poured out over our lives in ways that we are so full we can’t help but spill it out and give to others.

God did not save us so that we could sit around waiting to go to Heaven. He saved us and left us here to accomplish His plan which is to seek and save all others who are lost.