The gospel is the best and most important news ever given to the world. It’s good news because it comes directly from the Creator. It’s good news because it tells us what Jesus Christ has done for us. It’s good news because it transforms those who put their trust in it. The gospel is the central message of the Bible.

Both Old and New Testaments speak frequently about how people were designed and created to live in community. This foundational truth, found throughout Scripture, challenges us as followers of Christ to commit ourselves to living together for the purposes of providing support to one another, nurturing one another, and assisting one another as we grow and thrive spiritually.  

A committed servant of Jesus must be available, humble, obedient, faithful, and enduring. The truth is, no matter our capacity, or our talents, or our giftedness, when it comes to the service opportunities appointed to us through Jesus, complete faithfulness is required.

This is the first message in a series designed to challenge us as we consider whether or not we are truly “committed” to Jesus Christ. In a similar manner to Joshua’s challenge for his people, we too must decide whether we will follow the gods of our past, the gods of our present, or will we choose to follow God, our creator, the one who has done so much for us.

When we consider the story of God’s call upon Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, we usually don’t think of Abraham’s obedience as an act of worship, but true worship and obedience to God’s calling are tied together.

Are you ready and willing to commit and put in the necessary work required to become a daily worshiper of King Jesus? This message is designed to help us grow in our knowledge and our prayer life, with the hopes of becoming the Christian who worships God in “spirit and truth”.

Worship doesn’t have to be complex, loud, and showy, for it to be authentic. The things which motivate us lead us to true worship. When that worship is motivated by the love we have for God, the results are expressions of pure joy.

Jesus told a Samaritan woman at the well of Jacob that God is seeking those who will worship Him in Spirit and in Truth. Most of us at least now and again enter into wholehearted worship overwhelmed by God’s Spirit, but to worship God in Truth we must come to a point of awe at God’s worthiness to be worshiped. Only then can we fully enter into the spirit of worship which God desires from us.

Sometimes, it seems we can’t feel the presence of God in our hearts even though as born-again Christ followers we know that His Spirit dwells in us. At times like these we need to remember the words of Psalm 22:3 which says God is enthroned in the praises of His worshipers. We can draw closer to God and experience His presence more intimately by joyfully offering Him the praise He is due.

After the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem, he tried to change four young Hebrew captives Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah from being servants of the true God as reflected in their Hebrew names into being servants of the Babylonian’s false gods – by renaming them with Babylonian names and trying to make them conform to a Babylonian lifestyle and diet. But Daniel and the other three young Hebrew captives remained true to the God of Israel. Similarly, the sinful worldly system symbolized by Babylon in God’s Word tries to make us leave the service of God into which He has called us and return to a worldly life apart from God. From this story of the four young Hebrew captives, we can take encouragement and strength in our daily lives to remain true to our godly calling and resist the temptations and call of the world.