God's Antidote to Fear

July 17, 2019 by Kevin Johnson

Have you ever felt like God told you to do something? Were you afraid to do it? It’s one thing to feel like God is moving you to have a conversation with someone, or go somewhere, or do something. But what if you’re scared?

A couple months ago, I clearly felt like God showed me something I needed to do. I had some friends of friends who were about to experience the loss of a loved one. They were in a hospital near me with no one to be with them. I easily felt God saying, “You need to go and be with this family. Love them. Minister to them.”

I’ll be honest, I didn’t want to go.

Life and Death

July 09, 2019 by Kevin Johnson

I love thinking about the future. It’s fun to dream. There’s a comfort in knowing that there are always possibilities. As exciting as tomorrow can be, sometimes I have a tendency to forget about what’s going on right now!

It’s easy for us to do the same thing with the Gospel of Jesus - we throw it so far into the future that we forget what it means for us today. We know that through the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ we will spend eternity with God. What an exciting truth! But this is not the totality of the good news of Jesus. The Gospel is not only about a destination, but an identity.˜

The Narrow Road

October 02, 2018 by Kevin Johnson

We’ve all heard it before. The simple sentence that makes any class wake up and instantly pay attention. “This will be on the exam.”

There are moments in every class when you know it’s a good time to pay attention.

This morning we’re going to look at a passage where things really get real. In college, I took a computer simulation class, and early in the class the professor told us about the semester-long project that we would be doing in his class. He said that he was going to split us up into groups and the group that did the best would get an A, the second group would get a B and so-on. That was a moment where everyone really perked up! Suddenly, everyone was listening at that point! My group ended up with a B, but we got robbed. That’s beside the point.

In Matthew 7, Jesus is talking to a crowd of people and He says something that I think would perk them up. Jesus begins to talk about what it really looks like to follow Him in Matthew 7:13-14.

Perspective + Patience

August 22, 2018 by Kevin Johnson

Did you ever have a teacher who would read to your class? I always loved that. Sometimes they had a rocking chair. My teachers always knew how to hold the book just right so that everyone could see. At times they would share stories, but sometimes they would gather everyone around to tell them something very important.

There's a moment in the book of James, where James does just that.

Cycling

June 26, 2018 by Kevin Johnson

I think my dad might be a genius. He taught me how ride a bike when I was six years old. He simply put me on a bike with a helmet on my head and tied a rope around my waist. I learned to ride my bike while he just stood still. He stood in the middle of our driveway and I rode in circles around him. If I started to fall over he would just pull me back up. If I started to lean towards him he would give some slack, and he kept me from falling over in this way without ever having to move his feet. I learned how to ride a bike by riding in circles. As I did the same thing over and over again, I eventually learned the lesson. I was able to take off the rope and ride my bike wherever I wanted to!

We often do the same thing – we do the same things over and over again until something breaks us free, until something breaks us out of that cycle and we are able to live our lives in freedom. But we struggle so much. We may find ourselves stuck in cycles of sin, struggle, and addiction. We don’t know how to get out, and we’re stuck in our own struggle and selfishness. Every time it happens we feel powerless. We cycle on and on and it distracts us, moves us away from God, destroys our relationships and our attitude. Have you ever felt like you're stuck in the same cycle over and over again?

Beware

June 19, 2018 by Kevin Johnson

"Beware" is not a word that it's easy to think about Jesus saying all that much. However, it does seem like a word that we should pay attention to. In Matthew 6, Jesus warns us about living for Him for the wrong reasons. Look at Matthew 6:1-4:

“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others.”

Essentially, Jesus is warning us to not miss the point of living for Him. I think it’s easy for us to start doing things for Jesus for people because of the way that WE look at people. How do you evaluate the faith of other people? How do you spot the good Christians and the bad ones? How do you evaluate a "super Christian?"

What I Learned from the Train

May 17, 2018 by Kevin Johnson

Janie and I just returned from a vacation to the west coast. We spent a few days in L.A. before we boarded a train for a 34-hour ride to Seattle. It was just me, Janie, and the retirees, riding the rails. We took a lot of naps and spent most of the time just staring out the window. It was beautiful, riding quietly through uninhabited places of our country. There were mountains, lakes, forests - all wizzing by.

That was the challenge - if either of us saw anything interesting, it was difficult to point it out before it was gone. Everything whipped by so quickly. It was beautiful, and then it was gone. Slowly, Janie and I learned to stop trying to comment on everything, and just enjoyed the view.

It reminded me of a prayer from Psalms 90 that is actually a prayer of Moses.

Generosity

April 19, 2018 by Kevin Johnson

Have you ever read a certain Scripture and thought, “that’s perfect for this other person I know?” Have you ever read something in the Bible and thought, not about how it applies to your life, but how it applies to other people? Sometimes we sit in church and think more about 'people who need to hear this,' than we do about what God might be saying to us!

There's a passage in 1 Timothy that I think it's particularly easy to do that with.