“Historians will probably call our era ‘The age of anxiety’.” Anxiety is the natural result when our hopes are centered in anything short of God and his will for us.” - Billy Graham. Billy Graham wrote this in 1965 and over 50

years later this is still an accurate description of this present era.

The news that we are bombarded with daily is not encouraging. Our world is in chaos and evil abounds. For some, this causes fear and anxiety to set in and the enemy uses it to distract us from our relationship with God. If we

allow it to, anxiety and fear will cripple us and take over our lives. But there is hope! 2 Timothy 1:7 says “For God did not give us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, of love and of a sound mind.”  This verse says God has given us power! We do not need to fear! Philippians 4:6-7 says: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” Phillipians 4:8 tells us what we are to be focused on: “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy think about such things.” If you read on, verse 9 tells us that if we put these into practice the God of peace will be with

us. 

Are you allowing fear and anxiety to control you or are you focusing on the things that are true, lovely, pure, admirable, etc? The circumstances in our lives or even in our world may look grim but we can choose what we put our focus on. We can choose hope and peace over fear and anxiety because John 16:33 tells us that Jesus has already overcome!

By Elton Gingerich

but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5:8 (ESV)

The words of Rend Collective’s song “No Outsiders” grabbed my attention recently – “There are no outsiders, to Your love, We are all welcome, there's grace enough”. For many followers of Jesus that statement may seem elementary and not profound at all. We have come to understand (though probably not fully) that God does indeed love us all.

Think for a moment though about two scenarios: First, think back to before you accepted Christ. Did you have doubt or uncertainty about God’s love for you? Second, if you’re a follower of Jesus, think about times that you’ve fallen in sin. It's likely that some believers doubt God’s love for them when they’ve fallen in sin.

It's important to remind our brothers and sisters in Christ that God loves us. Let’s encourage one another with the truths of God’s love, because we don’t always feel like God loves us. Let’s also be more aware of sharing God’s love with the people around us who don’t know Jesus personally as Lord and Savior. Let’s demonstrate that they’re not outsiders to God’s love, but that God loves us even when we're sinners!

By:Marcus Steury

 “Make me to know your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long.” Psalm 25:4-5

This week’s revival meetings with Merlin has been an absolute blessing to me. I was thinking a lot about Merlin’s last message and the different steps to prayer he talked about. He spoke about different key steps to prayer, which are Asking, Listening, Surrendering and Obeying. This had me wondering how often, I really follow these steps in my own prayer life. One step that I always seem to forget about is listening. How often do I ask God for something and forget to stop long enough to hear what he responds. Do you think the prophets of old just heard from God without actually listening to what God was saying to them? This is something I definitely need to work more on and believe God has so much more to tell me and all of you as well, if we just listen. In a world full of distractions, it gets easy to forget what it means to listen, especially when we get used to hearing our own voices. Jesus has so much to share with us and wants what is best for us, but the only way to know what He wants is to listen. The verses today remind us that God will lead our lives and will direct our paths, but we have to be willing to stop and wait for a response. My challenge to myself this week is to spend more time listening and less time talking. I need to remember that our prayers to God are a conversation and I definitely don’t want to be that person, we all know that rule every conversation, especially with God.

By: Pastor Kevin Troyer