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There are certain geographic locations that remind us of difficult times but there are also places that remind us of grace. Hopefully you have a place or two that evokes memories of God’s goodness and kindness toward you. We often refer to places like that as “Bethel.” Bethel means “house of God,” it’s the place where Jacob met with God.

Is it possible to grow in faith? The words of Jesus to His disciples imply that this is possible. We have Biblical record that He sometimes said to people who believed in Him, “O ye of little faith.” Sometimes He said, “Where is your faith?” One guy said, “I believe, help my unbelief.” Jesus didn’t rebuke him for saying that. What would a growing faith look like? People have been writing about this idea for a long time, and their writings are profitable.

Rejection is painful. We want to be affirmed, received and accepted. There’s nothing wrong with such a desire. We were designed to be accepted by our Creator so we would seek Him. Once we find Him, we realize He was the One looking for us the whole time. Once we receive Him, we realize that He was the One wanting and waiting to receive us!

Worship is one of our Core Values. Sometimes we refer to Core Values as behaviors. If we live the values, we’ll accomplish our mission of developing followers of Jesus for life. We have summarized Worship as “loving and honoring God through surrender and obedience.” Worship is more than that as the Scripture clearly teaches. Worship recognizes God’s worth through praise, thanksgiving, celebration and submission.

It is much appreciated when people who do social media posts reveal that their lives are less than perfect. So many posts on Facebook and Instagram fuel the lie that other people’s lives are ideal. Their families are ideal. Their meals are ideal. Their vacations are ideal. Their date nights are ideal. The truth is that a lot of life is mundane and less than ideal. When people tell the truth and include even the messy parts of life it’s actually encouraging because we realize that being human is less than ideal.