Spiritual Growth Resources
Hell: A Different View of the Bible's Teaching
An 11-page study document ideal for Bible students who are troubled or confused on the subject of death, resurrection and hell. Written by Ed Gallagher, this document can be downloaded, printed, and given to others.
LifeSpot: Scripture counsels for Christians on the move ...
Download past spiritual growth messages from the bulletin. Written by Ed Gallagher.
Pure Victory – Clarify the Connection (4 September 2010, eBulletin)
"The end of all things is near. Therefore be clear minded and self-controlled" (1 Peter 4:7). The world we live in disagrees. Society promotes filthy minds and uncontrolled self-expression. If I don't make a radical distinction, I'll be poisoned, and the poison will devastate my eternal life. But check out the reason why Peter counsels clear minds and self-control—"so that you can pray". Here's the key. Prayer connects us with God, and the connection must remain clear! Like nothing else, impurity stifles the signal, drops the call, distracts the conversation, limits the relationship. Want more self control? Pray! Want deeper, better prayer? Practice self-control! You cannot do this. But God can, and he will.
Pure Victory – Set Your Focus (28 August 2010, eBulletin)
The apostle John gathered all sins under three headings—impurity, selfishness, and pride (1 John 2:16). These three are interwoven. Impurity reeks of selfishness and bursts with pride. Impurity shifts my focus from others to me, from God to me. That's why sexual sin is idolatry (Colossians 3:5). It's self-worship. It's every man's battle, every woman's struggle. And Jesus died for it. Our struggle may go on and on; but Christ goes even further. When we make our bed in hell, he's there. He knows how we're formed, remembers we're "dust". He's slow to anger, compassionate. He forgives, purifies. We set our focus back on him—and in this choice, we find our victory. (See Psalms 103, 139.)
Pure Victory – Claim Your Promise (21 August 2010, eBulletin)
As soon as there was creation, there was procreation. Adam and Eve received an amazing gift, an essence of the Creator himself. This gift was the capacity to be intimate; the ability to reproduce, to create again. What a God! And what a risk. As long as the gift inhaled the atmosphere of Heaven, it flourished. But when our first parents opened a window to the atmosphere of evil, the gift took on a new capacity—the sin of lust. But now consider this. God brought in a complete plan to restore men and women to the pure atmosphere of Heaven. "The blood of Jesus . . . purifies us from all sin" (1 John 1:7). The more deeply we've contaminated ourselves with sins of impurity, the more fully we can claim this incredible promise. Again, what a God!
The Beginning – A Gift of Rest (14 August 2010, eBulletin)
Creation week ends not with a thunderous roar, but in breathtaking silence. It's Earth's Sabbath—the first, the original (Genesis 2:2, 3). God at rest. Earth at peace. Creation celebrated. Beings in intimacy. God with his children present in a sanctuary of time. This is Sabbath—divine family time. It's when Gods kids turn their attention from the things that are made to the Maker of things. Today, Sabbath is the recurring reminder God gives believers that their story began in perfect rest, and that through Christ they discover perfect rest again (Hebrews 4:9, 10). If Sabbath was needed in the pure peace of Eden, it's needed much more in the sin-ravaged commotion of our modern lives. What a gift!
The Beginning – Darkness to Light (7 August 2010, eBulletin)
"Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters" (Genesis 1:2). Before God's intervention, there was shapelessness, emptiness, darkness. But when the Spirit of God hovered in expectancy, life stirred! The Spirit of God still hovers over our planet. God is doing a work of re-creation. "Let there be light. . . . Let there be life!" Filled with the stirring Spirit, the Son of God strode onto our soil and declared, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness" (John 8:12). Today, will you find your form, your fullness and your light in the power of the creating Christ?
The Beginning – Evidence for God (31 July 2010, eBulletin)
Huge sections of humanity do not believe in the Creation week described in Genesis. That story appears beyond credibility—infantile, primitive, irrational, unscientific. But consider the journey of science itself. Many findings and theories of years gone by look . . . well . . . they look infantile, primitive, irrational, and unscientific! We humans are a strange lot. We fix and declare our certainties even while we acknowledge the astounding Unknown. Genesis 1 is a declaration from the Unknown, shaped for Earth's first century and its last. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." If this is wrong, all declarations may well be wrong; and life is established on nothing. If this is right, and I accept it as right, my life is built on God and becomes evidence for him.
The Beginning – An Excellent Future (24 July 2010, eBulletin)
Wars, disasters, disease, crime, grief and loss, financial distress. Are you anxious about the future? I invite you to grab your anxiety and carry it back into the past—to the very distant past. All the way back to the Beginning. "In the beginning God created" (Genesis 1:1). In this Beginning, you can have your anxiety recreated into meaning, purpose, peace. You did not come from nothing; you came from God. Your daily struggles do not amount to nothing; they are significant to God. Your present life will not end in nothing; it will go forward in God. "In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind" (Job 12:10). For an excellent future, go back to the Beginning!