Richard Ellis Talks

God did not have to create things so intricately, so beautiful, or even pleasure-filled, yet every bit of His creation speaks of His love for us. All we have to do is look around at the ways that He has blessed us, even in such a small thing as popcorn that is a seemingly silly treat.

Too often, we hold onto the life we have, no matter how hard or consequential, because we’re more afraid of the unknown. God promises a future that is better than we could ever imagine, but the first step to getting there is letting go of all that we know to put it in His hands and see what He can do.

Instead of looking at people who are different as a barrier to connecting with them ourselves or for Jesus, we need to view people as equal in God’s eyes. He made us all in His image, and it is only because of sin in society that has created barriers between the beauty of His creation on display in humanity.

God has already done the work for so many people in the world and calls us to gather His harvest. Instead of hesitating because of our own insecurities, we need to listen to His leading, step out in obedience and gather His harvest.

While we all desire independence to avoid vulnerability, we can learn to trust God as our rock and strength when we finally come to a place of admitting that we need Him. Knowing that we are secure in Him brings us peace beyond understanding in the midst of all adversity.

Even after accepting salvation, we often remain in our cell of bondage. That bondage could be to a number of things such as sin, religion, guilt, etc. Until we come to a full realization of God’s love for us and His gift of freedom to us even in this world, we will remain in our cell. However, living in freedom does not mean that we should do whatever we want. God’s grace still covers us, but there are consequences. Rather than falling on either side of the spectrum, God teaches us to live in freedom, but in the kind...

We can choose to wait around and do nothing for the Kingdom while waiting for the end of the world to come or we can serve as soldiers in the Army of God fighting for the souls of others. We need to focus on the work God has given us to do, and when He comes back we will be ready.

A sign of a mature believer is one who is involved in a biblical community. The Christian life was not meant to be lived alone, but instead God designed the Church to be His Body that supports each member through the struggles of life.

God had designed each unique person to accomplish His work in the world. When we discover what it is that we are passionate about, we can use that passion to help grow the Kingdom of God.

Once we are saved, there is nothing that we can ever do or that can ever be done to cause us to lose our salvation. When we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we become children of God, and there are various “DNA” tests that we can check to make sure that He lives in us. We need to pray to God, proclaim that Jesus is Lord, ask for forgiveness of our sins, begin a relationship with Him and move forward in that.

Many people see Christians as hypocrites, and that is because we proclaim one thing and do another in secret. If we’re going to actually win anyone over to Christ, it is essential that we are vulnerable with them, showing them how Christ has redeemed us from our own sin and be transparent about how He is currently working in our lives and hearts.

God may not always give us the things we ask for, but He wants us to keep asking. As we grow in our relationship with Him, He begins to put things on our hearts to ask for that are according to His will and we see Him provide those things over and over.

Putting aside the influences that we may have been raised around when it comes to people who are different than us, Jesus unites us together and asks us to love one another. God’s family does not differentiate by race, economics, social standings, or anything else that our culture uses to distinguish people. We are all invited into salvation, and we can equally love Him, be loved by Him, and love each other.

When we experience consequences for the sin that we are partaking in, we need to respond in worship, thanking God for loving us enough to discipline us. The Bible is never supposed to be used as a weapon against us but rather as the Good News that there is forgiveness for those who believe and repent.

The Bible is full of stories of God using people who committed their lives fully to trusting and obeying Him. Once we receive Him into our lives and give ourselves completely to Him, He dwells in us and can do amazing things through us.

Too often we find ourselves reacting in the battles in our lives rather than acting only as God leads. When we worship God in the midst of our battles, our focus is on Him rather than the dangers we face and we can follow Him as He leads to overcome all that is in front of us.

The story of Samson shows us a man who continually made the same mistakes and ended up paying severe consequences. If we are watchful, we can see warning signs when we are approaching sins that we’ve paid consequences for in the past so that we can avoid it this time around.

Even though God is a big God who watches over everything, He also cares about every single detail in our lives. He watches over and protects us, and so therefore we can have peace knowing that we are safe in His hands.

Jesus was known for spending time with sinners and tax collectors, and it was the religious people that looked down on Him for it. Just as Jesus was sent to seek and save those who were lost, we have been given the same mission and need to be in the world spreading the Gospel.

Living in God’s family involves putting our fears aside and letting people see us for who we really are, struggles included, so that we can get help and then help others. Growth in our relationship with God will only happen when we begin peeling back our layers and letting Him and others in.

In today’s society it is easy to be swayed from what the Bible calls sin and begin believing that certain sins are okay. We, as Christians, need to be careful of this and stand firm in what Scripture says, while at the same time proclaiming the love and forgiveness that God has for everyone who believes and repents.

Without Christ working in us we are all bound to a life of sin and consequences that could’ve been avoided had we heeded wise instruction from Scripture. Rather than living childish lives that run after the pleasures of the world, we need to submit to God and allow Him to change us from the inside out.

Jesus modeled a life yielded to the will of the Father, no matter what sacrifice it called Him to make. Because Jesus obeyed, we now have access to receive the free gift of salvation and become children of God. As His children, we are called to submit our lives to His will and follow Him.

Jesus is the Son of the virgin, Mary, and God the Father Himself, making Jesus’ blood directly from the Father. It was that blood that was spilt when Jesus sacrificed His life for us so that we can be washed clean and be given a new life, eternal life with Him forever. There is not one person who cannot receive this blood and be forgiven.

The reality is that we are in a spiritual battle, and the devil attacks us where he knows us to be weak. It is crucial that we put on the full armor of God and surround ourselves by our brothers and sisters in Christ so that we can help protect each other from temptation and the attacks of the devil.

The Bible is very clear in the simple instructions it gives us to repent, follow Christ and do what He says. No matter if we see how something is possible, if God tells us to do something we must respond in obedience, trusting that He can even do what seems impossible.

The Bible is very clear when it comes to sin that we, as believers, must abstain from when we choose to follow Christ. God disciplines those He loves, and we need to respond to His discipline with gratitude, repentance, and worship for His forgiveness.

God wants us to pursue Him because when we do that our hearts begin to change and He places specific desires in us to pray about. When we pray with persistence about these things that He has put on our hearts, He promises that He will give us those desires.

A jerk is someone who thinks they have the answer to all the problems and tries to quickly fix things so they can move on. What we need to be, as the Body of Christ, is a Church family who weeps together and rejoices together. The only way we can do this is if we stop trying to fix everything and simply sit and listen, loving well and patiently letting someone process however long it takes.

God always sees a bigger picture than we do and He often calls us to trust Him when we don’t see how something is possible. When we put our faith in Him and step out as He leads, we will be astonished at what He can do.

The Bible tells us that we are all going to sin and mess up, however God made a way through His Son so that we can be forgiven and healed. No matter how far away we may have gotten by the poor choices we’ve made, we can always come back to Him, pick up where we left off and move on.

The Bible tells us stories of promises God made to His people and they had faith in His Word, even if those promises were not fulfilled until generations down the line. God has promised us that He will be with us, and that He will return to take us home to Heaven and we can count on Him to keep that promise.

As Christians we tend to point our fingers at other people’s sins and ignore our own, however it is not until we can admit to our own sin that we fully experience God’s grace and mercy and can extend it to someone else. Jesus is the only one who lived a perfect life and can say that everyone else has sinned, and it was His death that made it possible for us all to be made clean.

Hindsight gives us the ability to look back in the past to see a situation clearly based on the outcome, while faith allows us to have hindsight in the middle of any situation because we know that it will all be okay. When we trust God and focus on Him regardless of the trial we face, He will give us wisdom and strength to get through whatever it is we are going through.

We will constantly be tempted to sell out our Christianity for a certain reputation, job, relationship, anything that the devil might offer us. We must remember that our relationship with Jesus is priceless and He has already given us all that we could ever want in Himself.

We are born into sin and there is nothing that can cancel our debt to God except for Jesus Christ. He took our debt of sin on Himself and it was nailed to the cross as He died in our place so that all we must do is believe in Him and our sins will be completely forgiven.

God has promised to protect us and give us power over the devil, and since He lives in us we have access to everything we need when trials come. Rather than fearing the circumstances which leads to disobedience, we need to praise God and have faith in Him and His promises.

The thing about white toilets is that you can’t hide any filth in them because the white exposes what is there. Similarly, if we choose to live in the light as God calls us to, the filth and sin in our life will be exposed. The way to keep our “white toilets” clean is by living in obedience to God daily, understanding that it is a process and choosing to live in truth.

The world is full of people who are on a broad path, filling their lives with their own pleasures all the while headed straight for destruction. Jesus commands us to enter the gate that takes a difficult road but leads to eternal life.

Rather than appearing on earth as a man without having to go through all that we go through and working some magic, Jesus chose to enter this world through Mary’s womb as a baby, grow up and die a human death. He did this because He knew that this was the only way for us to enter a new life through Him and join Him in Heaven someday.