Richard Ellis Talks

When we become saved, our lives will show God’s active work in us and through us. When we share the Gospel news to others, we must believe that God is working on the other side where we can’t see and trust the Holy Spirit to do the work to bring them to salvation.

As Christians, we need to stop categorizing our lives by church, home and work. Our lives are supposed to be lived congruently, meaning that our Christianity must be woven in everywhere we go. In all that we do, we must work in a way that honors and glorifies God, remembering that the biggest blessing is eternal life with Him.

It’s easy to run away from God and live our lives according to our own rules and the world’s deceptive ways. No matter how long we’ve been gone, we can always return home to God in our hearts and He will always welcome us. It is also important that we find a church to call home so that we can have accountability and spiritual family to build us up.

As His children, God wants us to come to Him and tell Him we love Him. You cannot do that unless you know Him and see the things He has done for you. When you have that relationship with Him, you cannot help the worship that then overflows.

Jesus said to His disciples that if they follow Him that He would make them fishers of men. He says the same to us, making it inevitable that if we are truly following Jesus then we will be “catching fish” all along the way.

When we love other people that are different, we show others that our love comes from God and it’s Him who can unite us all. God loved the whole world and sacrificed His Son so that we could all be a family. No matter what reasons we may have to hate other people, we are called for higher reasons to love them with God’s help.

When we accept God’s forgiveness and give ourselves to Him, He shines a light in us and cleans us up. That light shines through us to anyone around, exposing the darkness they live in and attracting them to hearing about the Gospel and how they can also begin living in the light.

The Bible teaches that there is both a physical and a spiritual death. Unless Jesus returns in our lifetime, we are all going to experience a physical death. In order to be saved and made alive spiritually forever we must believe in the saving work of Christ on the cross for our sins.

When we look for Biblical teaching, we need to be willing to find something that may make us uncomfortable because it convicts us of our sin. When we are teaching others we need to speak the truth to them, but in a loving way. When the Word of God is preached, the power of God, through Christ, comes with it and brings change.

God has chosen specific people to reveal Himself to through Scripture. If the light has not turned on for us to see the power that God offers us, we must ask Him to show us so that we may live with purpose between now and Heaven.

The world offers us life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, yet following the world’s way brings us death, slavery to sin, and despair. The Bible tells us the truth about following Jesus as the only way to have an abundant life, true freedom from slavery to sin, and joy the exceeds all the sorrows of this world.

It is only by God’s Spirit revealing to us the promises and truth in Scripture that we are able to see and understand what He offers to us. God did not just give us a ticket to Heaven but instead He continues to reveal Himself and His limitless power through His living Word.

Jesus modeled perfect love by giving His life for us. He calls us to love each other as He loves us. When we love God, we cannot help but to obey Him and that love and obedience shows the world to whom we belong.

God hates evil and promises to hold vengeance in His hands, yet He also uses times in our lives when we feel destroyed to turn us around to follow Him. We will all come to an end in this life whether by death or by Jesus returning, but the question we have to face is where we’ll be after this life. The only way to hold assurance to the hope that is offered through Christ is to surrender to Him, acknowledge our sin, and repent.

Instead of focusing on just getting to Heaven, we need to look around for whom we can take with us. When it comes to evangelism and discipleship we need to be trained by others so that we can train others to go and do the same thing. As a Church, we need to work together because our unity, explained only in Christ, will attract more people to join in.

It is too easy, and sadly too common, to make fun of what other people believe. The truth is that what we believe as Christians is just as crazy to them when they hear the Gospel story. Rather than make fun of someone else’s beliefs or idols, we need to be open to hearing about their beliefs so that at some point they will be open to hearing about ours.

The world is full of “what ifs” that can cause us to fear greatly. When we truly give our lives to God, we can find peace and rest in the fact that He holds our lives and nothing happens to us that He has not allowed and protected us through.

Since creation God has designed everything to need a time of rest. He commands us in the Old Testament to take a day of rest out of every seven days, but too often we get caught up in the busyness of our lives to take a break. Jesus says that we should come to Him when we are weary because He will help carry our burdens and give us the rest we need.

When Jesus left the planet, He gave us the Holy Spirit that empowers us to bring the Gospel message to all the nations of the world. The Bible tells us that it is God’s desire for all to be saved, and we are His messengers sent to the nations to do His work and bring His Kingdom here on earth.

Just like Abraham had faith in God and obeyed God’s instructions a little at a time, we need to trust that God has a plan and purpose that we cannot see and we need to simply take each step as He leads. When we obey with each piece He gives us, we eventually see the picture He had planned all along.

The truth and hope that we need in our daily lives is all in Scripture. Rather than assuming that we won’t understand what’s in it, we need to dive deeply into reading the Bible and learning from this text message that God wrote for us to teach us about Him and how to live our lives.

Multiple times in the Gospels Jesus shows us a picture of His relationship with the Father by seeking His guidance and approval before stepping out on His own. We need to live in the same way, asking God to show us how to use what He has given us for His purposes and step out in obedience.

God loved us so much that He sent His Son to die for our sins so that we could be brought into His family for eternity. While our earthly fathers may fail us, God promises that He will never leave us or forsake us, and that He will always take better care of us than anyone else ever could.

Because of Christ’s death on the cross we now have the opportunity to become joint heirs with Him and call God our Daddy. When we become Christians, He lives inside of us, and when we die here on earth we get to go home to be with Him forever.

Sin is a slippery slope, and the devil entices us using things he knows will get our attention and leave us continually wanting more. God can give us the wisdom to know how to get out of these situations, but we must use it and actually make the right choices to follow God.

The best way for us to truly show our faith in Christ is through our actions. If we don’t back up our faith with our works then our faith is dead and makes no difference in our lives.

God gives us the strength and resources to win every battle, but we must be willing to stand up and fight. When we take a stand in small things along the way, we will be ready to take a stand when the big challenges and battles come.

We all face giants in our lives, something that seems too big and strong for us to handle. We also have moments when we question if we will have all that we need because the circumstances we find ourselves in are so overwhelming. Just as God has fought for His people throughout Scripture, and just as He provides for all of His creation, He has promised to take care of us so we need not fear.

We often go about our lives making choices, big or small, without ever consulting God. Instead of asking Him to bless our choices after the fact, we should seek His wisdom and His plans for us, letting Him lead our decisions in all that we do.

It is important to be involved in a community of believers so that when we need help we can simply ask and receive the help that others offer. At the same time, when someone asks for help we can help them and trust that when our time of need comes that we will receive the same help that we offer others.

Our purpose on earth is about more than just receiving salvation and going to Heaven when we die. We are left here for the sake of others, to reach out to them with the Gospel and to disciple them in their relationship with the Lord. We disciple others so that they can go and do the same, growing the Kingdom in the process.

People in the church tend to celebrate marriage and act like that is the goal for everyone, looking at those who are single as simply waiting to be married. While God can gift someone with a spouse, He can also gift people with the freedom of singleness that should be celebrated by the Church as someone lives their life serving the Lord. If we are all following Jesus in obedience, than whatever life He calls us to live is a gift.

Jesus committed Himself to us, going all the way to death on the cross. We must follow Him by wholly committing ourselves to obedience to His Word and direction.

The Bible was given to us by God to remind us how we should live our lives. When we read His instructions, we need to not just hear what it says but obey.

There are moments in our lives that will shock us because we are faced with difficult circumstances out of nowhere. When we allow God to use us through those times to reach other people for His sake we can be in awe of His work to expand His Kingdom.

When the Bible talks about God bringing opportunities and opening doors for us, it is referring to moments for us to share the Gospel with others and to bring God glory. God wants us to be in close relationship with Him so that when He opens a door for us, we see it and go through it, trusting Him to provide all that’s needed so that He can get the glory.

Just as our words can be used to build others up and encourage them, they can also be used to destroy people’s lives. When we talk poorly about others, we are really only showing our own insecurities. Rather than using our words to damage, we should be using them to spread the Gospel and share Christ with others.

The term “about face” means to turn around completely and go in the opposite direction. When Jesus died on the cross He made it possible for us to turn from the sinful life we’d been living and follow Him. When we choose to follow Christ we begin a relationship with God, and when we die one day we will have a familiar face to face encounter and we will live with Him forever in Heaven.

We all experience suffering at different points in our lives, whether brought on by ourselves, others, or God Himself for the purpose of refining us. He always has purpose in every suffering that He allows, and when we look to Him we can find the strength to make it through. As we are led by Him, He will also use us to comfort others and help them through their suffering.

People are looking for something that is making a difference, and having knowledge of Biblical truth does not make a difference unless we are applying it to our lives. When God’s Word is made known to us and we take further steps of application, transformation takes place and others see that and are pointed to God.