Can You Really Count on God's Grace?

When pastor James Van Tholen returned to the pulpit after a six-month battle with cancer, where he had been too weak to work, he came back knowing his time was short. He knew he had only weeks or months to live.

He was about the age of Jesus when Jesus went to the cross. He was in his early thirties.

And on that first day back in the pulpit, he told his congregation that he was scared of death. And he told them why.

He told them that he didn’t feel like he had finished. In fact, he knew for a fact that he had not accomplished the kind of life God had created him to live, and now there was no time to get it right.

He would have to depend on the grace he had always preached about, but he admitted he felt unprepared.

I'll share more about his story. counting on grace, and the crucial final words of Jesus on the cross at our Good Friday prayer services. 

Disappointment in God can create a crisis point in our faith

by Pastor John Eiselt

Disappointment in God can create a crisis point in our faith.

A crisis point can be a gift that helps us to consider more deeply what we believe, how we believe it, and by what basis we can trust what we believe. In this case, Jesus, our Savior.

But here’s the thing that is important for all of us to embrace; particularly if you’re in middle school, high school, or find yourself in a season of crisis or deep questioning of your faith… 

It is IMPOSSIBLE to develop true and lasting faith without seasons of crisis and questioning.

The Jewish people were faced with a crisis in their faith that felt like a change to the plan, AND they don’t move through it well. They are so close-minded to their messiah coming in a different form that they move to reject and kill Jesus. 

Our struggles, disappointments, profound tragedy, and loss are all a magnificent part of the story that God is writing.

Jesus came, offering the world another way to live. Jesus is ushering in a different kind of kingdom. The one true kingdom, over which he is king forever.

Our journey to Easter gives us the opportunity to reflect and reconcile our expectations and disappointments with Jesus’ true purpose…to rescue us, and to invite us to join and play our role in his story. 

This is not to disregard our needs, wants, or desperation in our current circumstances. It is an invitation to recognize God is doing something way bigger than resolving our current circumstances. In fact, Jesus is resolving the eternal in a way that indeed starts NOW.

Our looking to God is where our hope comes from. 

This week, as we journey towards Easter, reflect and examine what you believe and expect Jesus to be and open yourself up to what Jesus may be doing in you and through you that is different than that. Repentance is a turn to a new direction. Turn to embrace who and what he is and is doing in you and in the midst of the season you find yourself in.