Bay City Wesleyan Church

We tend to see the life of faith as a series of 100-yard dashes - short emergencies requiring bursts of faith. For example, an illness crashes in on a loved one and we try to summon up faith for healing. However, the life of faith is a life-long marathon calling us to believe in Jesus' power and wisdom, to trust in Jesus' character and love as well as to follow Him loyally.

Every single human being is spiritually dead. In our self-sufficient delusions, we think we can make things right. But dead people don't accomplish anything. Our only hope is God's simple promise of forgiveness for all our sins.

Some doubts lead to deeper faith. This kind of doubt is acceptable to God. It asks, "How can this happen?" However, we must avoid the kind of doubt that leads to disbelief and sin. It asks, "Why should I believe you?" Doubts and questions that deepen our faith (creating greater belief and trust in, as well as loyalty to the Lord) are good for us. Doubts and questions that decrease our faith (creating greater disbelief, distrust and disloyalty to the Lord) are spiritually deadly. The difference is whether we are willing to come under God's authority with our doubts and questions unanswered or not.

We like to think we are playing the ball game of life on our terms with our own team. However, there are only two teams in life- God's play by the rules team & Satan's make up your own rules team. These are our only options. God invites us to sign up with his team.

A parable inspired by Pastor Kevin Meyers of 12Stone Church in Atlanta, GA

A parable inspired by Pastor Kevin Meyers of 12Stone Church, Atlanta, GA

A parable inspired by Kevin Meyers of 12Stone Church, Atlanta, GA

A parable about Christian Life and Baseball inspired by Pastor Kevin Meyer of 12stone Church, Atlanta, GA

A parable about Christian Life and Baseball inspired by Pastor Kevin Meyer of 12stone Church, Atlanta, GA

Parable about Christian Life and Baseball inspired by Pastor Kevin Meyers of 12stone Church, Atlanta, GA

We always underestimate the deceptiveness of our hearts. We live in denial all the time. We assume that since we feel good about our lives then we must be doing OK. But "The human heart is most deceitful and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is? But I know! I, the LORD, search all hearts and examine secret motives. I give all people their due rewards, according to what their actions deserve." (Jeremiah 17:9-10 NLT) We must ask the Holy Spirit to search our hearts and allow Him to expose all our secret offensive, hurtful, wicked ways.

We humans tend to think of heaven as a vastly improved earth with all of the fun and none of the problems. We seldom mention God in our descriptions, but He is the focal point of heaven. It is God' perfect holy place, designed for His global family reunion. We will meet brothers and sisters from "every tribe and language and people and nation" (Revelation 5:9 NIV).

We tend to think heaven is a place to go when we die - that it's all "by and by in the sky". However, we can begin to experience heaven here and now because it is wherever God is; and Jesus said, "All those who love me will do what I say. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and live with them." We can also share a little bit of heaven with others.

God wants us to look inside ourselves because there's something going on beneath the surface. If we're going to find the joy of the Lord, we're going to have to look inside. We often try to avoid the pain, shame and/or guilt we might uncover but if we want to experience joy, we must take a hard look at our hearts. It may be painful to look at the parts of our past we want to ignore and avoid, but honesty is the gate to the joy of the Lord.

God urges His family first of all to pray. But He doesn't make prayer easy. His instructions specify that as Christians we are to pray for everyone.

You can learn to let go by giving God your desire for comfort, security and control. Let Him replace it with the reality of His presence.

No matter how strong our faith may appear and no matter how firm our commitment feels, our faith can be shipwrecked. That is Satan's goal for us. He wants to destroy us. But God has exposed our enemy's plans and purposes.

We are powerless to achieve the “extreme make over” of our characters that is necessary. We cannot change ourselves and win the spiritual battles we face. We need to surrender our self-sufficiency and declare our God-dependence. However, we can be “strong in the Lord��"s mighty power.” We can take our stand in these battles and we will stand in all the blessings Jesus provides.

We can enjoy a victorious life with Jesus. We can choose to live out the Lifestyles of Victory. These are relentless daily decisions. They are habits we develop and deepen over time.

Trusting God gives us the strength to overcome our fear of commitment.