Richard Ellis Talks

Believers often go about life making choices, big or small, without ever consulting God. Instead of asking Him to bless our choices AFTER the fact, let's seek His wisdom, His plans, and His permission FIRST, letting Him lead our decisions in all that we do, saving us from unnecessary consequences that come from living outside of His will.

God promises to help us when we cry out to Him, but He also uses people to help us, too. It's vitally important for our spiritual growth and health to be involved in a community of believers, so that when someone asks for help, we can help them, and also trust that when our time of need comes, we'll receive the same help that we offer others!

The purpose on earth for every Christ follower is about more than just receiving forgiveness and going to Heaven when we die. We're left here for the sake of others, to reach out to the people around us with the Gospel, then to disciple them in their relationship with the Lord. Discipling others helps them to grow, so that they then can go and do the same, growing the Kingdom in the process!

God’s desire is that everyone would know Him, so that we all could live forever with Him. Sadly, not everyone will choose to follow Him. But for those who do, we anxiously await our King who promised to come back for us! So while we wait, it's important that we tell everyone we can about Him, so they'll have the opportunity to receive His forgiveness and go to Heaven too!

Even though Jesus told His disciples over and over that He'd be raised from the dead, they still didn't believe it when it happened. They needed to see Him again afterwards to prove that it happened. But we don’t have that luxury. Instead, we can choose to keep doubting and grow hard-in-heart, or we can choose to put our doubts aside, and put faith in the only One who paid the price to reconcile us to God!

The ultimate mistake that anyone could make, would be to pass on God’s offer of salvation, which is why He sent His only Son to die. When we understand the Gospel - Jesus came, died, and was raised from the dead to give us eternal life - let's respond immediately, not only receiving the free gift He offers, but also then living the rest of our earthly life in His joy and purpose!

God orchestrated all that was needed to be done to reconcile us to Himself through the sacrifice of His Son. Since He gave everything to make it possible, let's respond by surrendering everything of ourselves back to Him!

Jesus sacrificed Himself for our sake, so that we can live forever in Heaven. He took on the weight of all of our sin - the punishment that we deserve - and He chose to suffer for us. So the best response we can have to Him is to give our own lives up to His will and obey His calling!

While on earth, Jesus modeled a life of service for us to now follow in His footsteps, and give our lives in service to God. The price for us - God's own ransom note for our soul - was paid, by sending His Son to die in our place. We find our purpose in life by living out His plan, responding in submission to His will and serving Him.

There are moments in our lives that'll shock us, because we're faced with difficult circumstances that seemingly come out of nowhere. But when we allow God to use us through those times to reach other people for His sake, we can be in awe of His work to expand His Kingdom.

When the Bible talks about God bringing opportunities and opening doors for us, it's referring to moments for us to share the Gospel with others and to bring Him glory. God wants us to be in close relationship with Him, so that when He opens a door for us, we recognize it as a door that's actually from Him, and go through it, trusting Him to provide all that’s needed, so that He can get the glory!

When we chase sin, and get caught up in the snares of this world, we find ourselves being burned with consequences and destruction by the sin we’re chasing. However, the fire that God can light in us through His Holy Spirit can burn away the desire for sin, and stir an all-consuming passion in our hearts for chasing after Jesus!

The Christian life is a process that involves moving forward after each time of struggle, temptation, sin. As long as we're here on earth, the enemy will continue to attack, trying to "take us out". But God will never leave us, never turn His back on us, and never NOT welcome us back with open arms after we fall, knowing that we'll never arrive at completion until we're home with Him!

It's said about the Church that people don't care how much we know, until they know how much we care. We can hunker down in our little "Christian country clubs", and bask in our self gratification all we want, but it doesn't do God any good whatsoever! What brings His light of hope and love to a dark and thirsty world, is for believers to put God's Word in action, being an example to others of His wonderful transformation.

Sin entered this world when Adam and Eve disobeyed God's only rule of Eden, eating from the forbidden tree. Then God set in motion His redemption plan through Jesus, as the mighty cross became the "Tree of Life" for humankind. Now, forgiveness is available to all who receive Jesus as Savior, those who "eat" from this Tree of Life!