Greater Life Church

Bro. Hughes' scripture text is part of Paul's report to Agrippa about how is life changed and he began to live for Christ. He sums up his story by saying from that moment he had lived up to that heavenly vision. Bro. Hughes asks each of us: "Are you living up to the heavenly vision in your life?"

Everyone has faced a situation in life where we did not know where to turn. Bro. Hughes asks "What do you do when you don't know what to do; when we have said all you know to do, and all that you are capable of doing, but nothing changes?" In our text Paul outlines who our enemy is and he makes it clear what we are facing. Then he gives us the needed armor and arsenal to deal with this enemy. After he describes this armor and the enemy, he offers the most difficult strategy for dealing with the enemy and his attack: Stand. This advice is not in our nature. We either want to do something, or to turn and run, but to stand still is not natural to us. Bro. Hughes reminds us that it is better to stand still, especially when we do not know what to do.

The most dangerous thing to life is not a poison, a dangerous animal or some physical challenge. Jesus encountered this thing when he returned to his home town. The miraculous work of Jesus in other areas of the country had no power in the place he grew up. The familiarity with Jesus, left the people of his home town unable to believe in Him as anything other than what they had known. It has been said that familiarity breeds contempt. They knew him too well. Their "knowledge" of Him left them unable to see Him for what He was. We too must guard against familiarity. This thief called familiarity does not steal your blessing. It hides the blessing, or to camouflage its existence. Familiarity dulls our senses to the point we forget how blessed we truly are. We are blessed, but we don't see it. This can cause us to lose sight of how good our life is. The devil cannot steal our blessing, but he can use familiarity to hide the true nature of our blessing from us. This thief cannot steal our salvation;

Bro. Custer uses as his text the familiar parable of the prodigal son. Often when this scripture is used, we identify the younger son as a back slider. In truth, that prodigal son can be any one of us. We do not have to be back slid to realize that we have gotten too far away from God and want to come back. It is easy to think that we have disappointed God and feel like we are not worthy to return to His favor. The parable demonstrates to us that this is not the case. The father threw a party for the young son. The party was to raise the spirits of the young son and to help restore him to full status. The party guests can be identified as the members of the church. Bro. Custer declares that as church members, it is our duty to reach out to the “prodigals” in our midst and help to restore them to full status as a child of God.

We do not know the worth and value that faith has brought to our lives. Faith is beyond value because faith has made all of us better than we would otherwise be. Most of us would agree that we are all better off now than we would have been without the Lord in our lives. Not only that, but because we are connected to the church, we are connected to and associated with a better group of people than we would be if we were to only associate with the world. Bro. Hughes proclaims that he would rather live a life of faith than any other kind of life. Faith has also elevated our horizon. With faith we can always reach for and expect more, because we know that God can far exceed our needs. Our scripture text states that God was not ashamed to be their God. This implies that there are those about whom God is ashamed. Our text offers characteristics of the people about whom God is not ashamed. • They walked by faith • They could have gone back, but they did not • They d

Our scripture text is the last words of King David. Bro. Hughes uses the last words of this great man to deliver a stirring message.

Bro. Hughes uses the parable of the sower to encourage us to improve our opportunities.

Bro Hall uses the story of the prodigal son as his scripture text tonight. Both the young son and the father had a story. The son’s story was that he was not worthy. The father’s story was that he son had returned. The son had a choice of which story he would believe. The older brother also had a story. The older brother’s story was that he had been faithful and never disobeyed. He was resentful that he had never been treated like the younger brother was being treated. He felt he was not being treated fairly. Bro. Hall explains that grace and mercy are not fair. The grace of God is not built upon our earning it. So we have three stories. The story that each man chose to believe will go a long way in determining the life that each would live. The difference of what story to believe is the difference between enjoying the blessings of God or living in a virtual hell.

Our scripture text warns us to guard against allowing our selves to slip. Some translations use the word drift. Drift means to move without power; to be at the whim of winds and currents. A life without purpose will wander around at the whim and swirling currents of life. The King James translation uses the word slip. Bro. Hughes suggests that slip is more dangerous than drift. In nautical terms, slip refers to the loss of power between the engine and the propeller. Slip is natural and occurs no matter what we do. Drift is accidental and can be prevented. Our scripture text extols us to pay attention to our spiritual life so that there is will not be slippage. The only remedy for slip is the continual diligence and vigilance. We have to know that it occurs, and plan for it in order to overcome it.

In our text, Moses is traveling and comes upon a burning bush that is not consumed by the flames. He then discovers that the bush talks and it is the voice of God wanting him to do something. Moses offers 6 excuses for why he cannot do what God wants him to do. Bro. James Hughes explores these excuses and offers lessons to be learned from them.

Leprosy is a horrible disease. It is a cell by cell rotting away of the human body. Jewish law was that if a man had leprosy, he must separate himself away from society. Everything that the leper touched had to be cleaned or destroyed. It became as if the leper had never existed. It was forbidden for there to be any contact (physical or otherwise) between a leper and a healthy person. Spiritually, sin is leprosy. It destroys lives and forces the child of God to have to live outside from and to be cut off from God’s people. In our story, Jesus (in violation of the law) spoke with had contact with a group of lepers. Jesus spoke healing into their life, but the evidence of the healing did not happen until they began to travel to present themselves to the priests. In obedience to God’s word, they began to be healed. It did not happen immediately, but as they obeyed the Lord, they were cleansed. One of the 10 turned back and begins to praise the Lord. All ten of the

Our scripture text asks the two most important spiritual questions that have ever been ask. Even today, Have your received the Holy Ghost and how were you baptized are eternal questions the answer to which will determine how we will spend eternity. Our text takes place 23 years after the day of Pentecost. Paul comes to Ephasis and finds these 12 men who were followers of John the Baptist. When ask about the Holy Ghost, they profess to not even know if there was a Holy Ghost. They had somehow missed Calvary and Resurrection. They had missed the day of Pentecost. They missed all this because they were living in the past. Bro. Tumenello proclaims that if we live in the past, we will miss what God had for us in the present and the future. The past is a difficult place to live. Once we come out of the past, God give us something that is glorious but we must come of the past to receive it. We must come out of the shadow of that happened, and stand in the light of what God has for us. We have to let go o

Paul writing to the early church contrasts the life that was and the life that is resurrected. The life that was dead in sin and the life that lives in a newness of the resurrection. The message of the death, burial and resurrection is a fundamental message. Paul describes how we go about living this new life. The first is a description of what has transpired so that there is no question that we died to one way of life, and that we rose to walk in a newness of life. That knowledge is essential if we are to enjoy the beauty of living for God. The second thing Paul talks about begins in verse 11. The first part of the chapter is how God sees the death, burial and resurrection in our lives. Beginning in verse 11, Paul tells us how WE need to view it. He says that we need to view ourselves as dead unto sin. It does not matter how much we know. If we do not live that knowledge, it is all worthless. When we realize that we have died to sin, we are no longer controlled by sin. Sin will always be there,

Many things happen in life for which there is no explanation. People die. Good people die. We can be tempted to ask God why. He has to remind us that life is temporary, but what we do while we are here is important. Jesus relates in our scripture text, the story of a rich man who had everything and a beggar who had nothing. The bible tells us that the both the rich man and the beggar died, and was carried by angels while the rich man went to hell. It was not until then that the rich man discovered that the poor man had something on the inside that was really key to his success. God had laid that poor man at his gate, but the rich man never paid any attention. God has laid someone or something at our gate. Bro. Tumenello asks: What has God laid at your gate?

Spring is a wonderful time of year. It comes with the hope of new of life and the promise of renewal. All that had seemed dead comes back to life and new growth appears on the plants and flowers. The song birds begin to sing their song amid the dead winter landscape. This singing announces the change of the season. This singing is evidence of the impending spring. If we were to look around, all still seems dead, but the song bird has a promise of a change. However dead it may seem in our life today, the spring is upon us and the time for renewal is coming. It is easy to fall in the winter doldrums spiritually. It may seem like we will never get out of the dreary cold time of our life. God’s promise is that there IS a change coming. Like the birds, we need to sing the song of spring and rejoice in the promise of change.

One can look at humanity and see that we are all different. We have different tastes, different languages, and different customs. But despite all our differences, we are all the same in that we are needy. Every one of us has needs that we cannot supply ourselves. We cannot solve all of life’s problems and mysteries without assistance. Micah was overcome by the troubling times in which he lived. He outlines in the opening verses of Micah chapter seven, the overwhelming carnality of everyone around him. By his estimation, everyone around him was evil and not to be trusted including his own family. This all changes in verse seven when he turns away from his despair and declares his trust in God and affirms “my God will hear me” Scripture Text: Micah 7:7-8 Message Title: God will hear me Speaker: Mark Hughes Running Time: 48 Min 40 Sec