If you’ve spent any time in the church, you know that relationships can be both a blessing and a challenge. The call to bear with one another and forgive as we have been forgiven often feels straightforward...until we actually have to do it. Colossians 3:12–14 brings us back to the foundation: we are God’s chosen, holy, and beloved people. From that identity flows a life marked by compassion, humility, patience, and love. But we don’t grow into these things by effort alone, w

One of the verses from Sunday’s sermon that deserves more attention than we were able to give it is Colossians 3:10 . In that verse, Paul says, “...put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.”  In the sermon, we focused primarily on what it means to be renewed in knowledge , but in this blog I want to think more intentionally about what it means to be made in the image of our Creator . Genesis 1:26–27  teaches us that when God crea

Yesterday, in our combined Grow Class, we tackled some of the questions that have been on the hearts and minds of the people at Lakeside. The most frequently asked question that we received dealt with the relationship between Israel and the church. Below you will find a reformatted copy of my response in that class. Please feel free to reach out with any questions. One of the most frequently asked questions in the church is this: What is the relationship between Israel and th