Month: June 2025

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

-Ephesians 2:10

As born again believers, what grows from our faith should always be a desire to fill our position in the Kingdom. Unfortunately, we often overlook this vital aspect of our walk. Far too many Christian’s today don’t even understand that their faith is to be exercised and active. 

We know from the Great Commission that simple evangelism is not enough. Jesus specifically said to make disciples. In other words, to follow in His footsteps. Jesus was continually making those around Him better. He was helping them come to a point where they could finally be who God created them to be. As a result, they changed the world.

Discipleship is great. 

You get to invest into someone’s life. You get to share in their ups and downs. You get to be a part of their growing faith journey. It’s truly a special and unique relationship filled with those moments you will never forget. 

But one thing comes before any of this can happen. We must first seek the Holy Spirit to allow us to see the potential in others.

Because of man’s sin nature, we have a natural inclination to view others as a commodity. Selfishly, we use others for our benefit or advantage in order to ultimately get what we want. If you look around this world, from personal relationships to work environments to politics to marketing, it’s everywhere. But as Christ followers, we are invited to see others in a very different light, the light of how Jesus sees them. 

This changes everything!

It changed us after all. We were once wretched sinners, stuck in the muck and mire of our flesh. Living as the world lives, doing as the world does. Few saw the God given potential in us including ourselves. 

But Jesus did. 

And through the Father’s masterful plan, He put others in our life to help us see and realize that potential. Having someone come alongside us, to teach us, challenge us, edify us and hold us accountable in a Christ centered way is priceless. None of us would be where we are today if someone didn’t choose to spiritually sow into our lives.  

And we are to now do the same.

Jesus gave us our commission, which unlike a suggestion is an instruction, a command, a duty that was bestowed to us personally by the Holy Spirit through the Scriptures. Therefore we have a responsibility to others. We are to assist the Holy Spirit in helping those God places in our life find and grow in their potential.

And yet, how often do we miss the opportunity to be a part of someone else’s life? Too often, most likely. So today, let’s all resolve to be more open to the Holy Spirit and to look for the God given potential in others.

Jason Metz, lead Pastor

I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well.

– 2 Timothy 1:5

I enjoy being on the water. There is no doubt that a peace comes when we simply stand and enjoy the water. There is also a strength that I appreciate. A potential that is powerful as well as life giving. In the calmness of the water there is also a significant amount of expectation and ability. 

It doesn’t even matter what water I’m on. An ocean, the Great Lakes, mountain lakes, rivers, ponds or creeks, there is just something about bodies of water that draw me in. 

Water is fascinating because of its fluid properties in that there is a serene effect while also possessing so much capability. I don’t think it’s any surprise that we find so many life giving verses in the Bible that use water as an example of the greater spiritual truth. From the cleansing ability of water to the life-giving capacity, Jesus describes our faith in Him in terms of having rivers of living water flowing from our hearts.

Water draws us in, a focal point inviting us to enjoy what it has to offer. How many times in your life have you thrown a rock into a pond simply to watch the ripples? Ripples that emanate in multiple consecutive rings of motion upon the surface. What started with a small rock in your hand disrupts the normal. Far from being localized, those multiplying rings continue to grow bigger and bigger and bigger. 

That’s what I see happening when we live out our faith. One word, one action, one decision can be the rock that disturbs the lifeless normality of this world. When we intentionally make Christ the Rock in our life, our actions will always affect those around us just like ripples in water.

Conversely, when we sow seeds of division and destruction through our words and actions, those too will have an affect on those around us. 

When our personal faith and Christ-centered intentionality looks like throwing stones, imagine what the church can look like. Thousands of consecutive impacts, each causing ripples that overlap each other all in the name of Jesus.

It’s like watching a lake during a rainstorm. The entire surface has become alive. Ripples everywhere, unique to themselves, but overlapping in beautiful changing movement. 

In your life, what ripples are you causing? Are they positive or negative? What extended effect might they have? For Timothy, a rippling foundation was started with his grandmother and in conjunction with his mother helped shape him into the minister he became.

Sunny days are fine, but my favorite are those cloudy days. Watching a storm come in with all its power and might never gets old. And when the raindrops begin to make ripples I am always reminded of the potential power the Church has.

Jason Metz, lead Pastor

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

– Jeremiah 29:11

These are very powerful words. Spoken by God Himself to affirm to Jeremiah that He has a plan. A powerful plan. A plan that is available to all of us. Like many areas of our faith, the determining factor comes down to making a choice. Jeremiah had already made his choice and this is the promise that followed. 

I don’t think there is any doubt that we live in a world ruled by chaos. Everywhere we look, instability, destruction and disorder rule the day. Isolation, seclusion, escapism have become all too prevalent and it manifests as depression, social disorders and mental illness issues. Those terms are laid upon a broken world and the ironic part is that it uses its own tragically broken standard. By this reasoning, how can we be surprised? After all, this is all the world can offer. The darkness can judge by no other standard than the darkness it knows until light has entered the equation. 

No wonder so many young people struggle today. It seems to be at a rate greater than any epidemic this world has ever seen. We could debate all the physiological and social reasons and factors contributing to these problems, but honestly doesn’t it come down to just one factor?

Purpose.

When we live without purpose, we live without reason. Simply going through the motions. Seeking to get by day to day. Attempting to meet the minimum standard others or society has established. Filtering our future through the regrets and mistakes of yesterday. Watching our self-respect dwindle to little more than an empty tank. 

In Ecclesiastes 1:2 Solomon says, 

“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”

Solomon in his old age has found everything in this world to be empty and void of meaning. In other words, he has lost sight of his purpose and the world has nothing to offer. 

Some of the best news and affirmation that we can ever receive is that we in fact do have purpose. Purpose that transcends this broken world’s standards. Purpose that goes beyond our situation, our past, our failures. Purpose that is not based upon other people’s plans, desires or agendas. 

True purpose that we can only find in one place. It’s the purpose that only God holds the keys to. It transforms us to our core. Our very mindset is changed to reflect God and His attributes. Attributes like hope, love, compassion, humility, appreciation, community. It is God’s purpose in our life that brings His light that begins to judge and subdue the darkness. It’s the illumination that allows us to see our life for the wondrous gift it is. It moves us from our selfish desires and self-condemnation to a Christ centered view of today as well as eternity. This is the essence and foundation of our purpose. 

Isn’t it time to start living out your purpose?             

Jason Metz, lead Pastor

The saying is trustworthy, for:

If we have died with Him, we will also live with Him;
if we endure, we will also reign with Him;
if we deny Him, he also will deny us…

– 2 Timothy 2:11-12

The expression, dead man walking was coined for a condemned prisoner being led to the executioner. Judgment had been pronounced and at this point, death was inevitable. It is a saying that is also used to describe a person in a doomed or desperate situation. This obviously pertains to a physical death or wordly hardship. But could this be expanded to a greater spiritual truth?

The reality, in a spiritual sense is that we are all a dead man walking. But it is the kind of death we choose that makes the distinction of the death we are facing. 

Because of our sin, the just penalty can only result in both our physical as well as our spiritual death. In a physical understanding, because of the fall of creation, the moment we are born we our bodies begin to die. (Genesis 3:19 – By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.) From a spiritual aspect, because of our choice to pursue sin, we are already dead by God’s standards. (Romans 6:23a – For the wages of sin is death.) 

What a dismal thought. What a blatant reality. Condemned. Every step we take on this earth is one of a dead man walking. Even worse, there is nothing we can do in our feeble attempts to rectify this situation.

But there is hope. 

While our sin and this world presses us on in our march to eternity, an eternity separated and devoid of all of God’s attributes, Jesus offers something no one else can offer. 

Jesus offers us death.

But it is a much different death. It is His death. It is death to this world, to sin, to ourselves. It is a death that must occur before we can receive a new life. Resurrection life. Life in and through our Savior. Life that causes us to die and to continually die, every single day. Life that allows us to see the sin and darkness of this world for the tragedy it is. Life that shows us that though we are in this world, we are no longer of this world. Only through Christ, can we make the choice to be a dead man walking. Walking all the way into the arms of our loving Lord and Saviour Jesus.

There’s no escape from being a dead man walking. However the distinction is what’s important. Be careful, because it is where you will eventually and eternally wind up.

For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him.

– Romans 6:7-8

Jason Metz, lead Pastor