Welcome to Sounds and Conversations Church, where we have good news ... You are loved!

When we think we’re measured or rewarded by God based on what we do and not who we are, we get stuck in self-condemnation. And fear. And we all know where that road leads!

When we get God’s order wrong, the abundant life, which starts as an inside condition, will elude us. But when we get the order right, we manifest Christ’s abundant life that is in us. You’ve often heard Pastor Mike say, “Get the order right!” What does this mean? It means that our God rules a kingdom that operates according to principles and order. Often we do not experience the abundant life God has for us—not because He hasn’t given it to us—but because our lives are not in proper order.

Zephaniah 3:17 is a reminder of the incredible love and joy that God has for His people. He is not a distant and dispassionate God; He is the Mighty Warrior who rejoices over us with singing. May we seek Him, trust in His forgiveness, and rejoice in His deliverance. In doing so, we will find ourselves dwelling securely in the shadow of His wings, where no trouble can ultimately harm us, and where His love, grace, and mercy will sustain us through every storm.

Like most Christians, I lived most of my Christian life with the false belief that the seen and temporal realm was the primary one. And it’s understandable why we do; the seen, temporal realm is the one that speaks the loudest. But the truth is: The unseen, eternal realm is the one which supersedes the seen and temporal. It is the realm where the Kingdom of God is. Therefore, the unseen, eternal realm is the realm where God’s rule and reign originate.

Muhammad Ali once said, “It is the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And when belief becomes a deep conviction, things change.” We aren’t preaching some New Age, “name it and manifest it” teaching. As Christians, we confess the truths and promises already given to us in God’s Word until we believe them. This is the “shift” in our thinking and believing (our repentance) that leads to abundant life.

Listen to Pastor Mike exhort us to “get our shift together” so that we may believe the full Gospel of our salvation!

When you really get revelation of this down in your spirit, you begin to see that the whole Christian life is simply one of reckoning—of catching up with the Spirit’s revelation that your old self died and all that is left is Christ in your dead vessel, enlivening it and living His life unto the Father, as if it were you. You have exited the building. You’ve been removed from the equation.

The story of Jonah serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of pride and the importance of humility and obedience in following God's will. Jonah's journey from prideful rebellion to humble submission reminds us of the need to put aside our own desires and ego in order to align ourselves with God's plan and experience His mercy and grace.

The story of Jonah teaches us that disobeying God's call to a task can lead to personal difficulties and disruptions in the lives of others. It emphasizes the importance of heeding divine guidance promptly and wholeheartedly, as doing so not only aligns us with our purpose but also brings about positive change and growth, both for ourselves and those around us.

Death, for a Christian, is not just something that happens after our biophysical machine stops working. Death also happened when you were baptized! “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” (Romans 6:3-11).

Watch two baptisms take place as Pastor Mike and Pastor Cliff teach on being hidden in God through baptism!

I’ve spent many seasons of defeat, demoralization and aguish in my Christian life. There were a lot of reasons for that. But they could all be boiled down to one area of ignorance: I still thought I had enough strength to do it!

I can honestly say that I didn’t start experiencing real growth until I got hold of my identity in Christ. It released me from thinking that the Christian life was more about doing things for Christ instead of being who I am in Christ.

Listen to Pastor Cliff teach us more about our identity in Christ in Part 2 of “Salt and Light.”

Jesus Christ is our Life. He is the only One who has life; we cannot deliver ourselves. Only Christ can deliver us. When you see that, you stop striving to “be your own deliverer” or “get your act together.” You rest in the truth that “It is accomplished,” (John 19:30). Peter says that God’s “ … divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness …” (2 Peter 1:3).

Being salt and light are about your identity. And your identity doesn’t change based on the clothes you wear or your outward conduct, or on any external reality.

Listen to Pastor Cliff teach us more about what it means to be the salt of the earth and light of the world.

If we look at the fires of our lives from a natural, seen, and temporal perspective, these fires burn and injure us. But if we look at the fire with spiritual eyes, God joins us in the midst and turns it into the fire of God which purifies, heals, and even delivers us.

Perhaps no other vice will destroy your fellowship with God more than pride. What makes pride so insidious is how cleverly it hides from sight. We usually don’t know when we’re operating in pride; it lurks around in the shadows of our subconscious, causing all sorts of problems for us.

“I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:17-19).

We read certain Bible passages, or articles from reputable Christian organizations like The Gospel Coalition, telling us how we ought to pursue holiness. And it sounds good in theory. But the question is: Does it work in practice? Is working, striving and pursuing holiness the way to actually become holy?

You can tell whether you have the mind of Christ when the seen, temporal facts of your life oppose you. For example, when you’re ill, that is a seen, temporal fact. But the Word says, “By His stripes we were healed.” One reality is in the seen, temporal — the other in the unseen, eternal. You start to really operate in the mind of Christ, however, when the unseen, eternal truths are your first choice.

It takes a long time, but if we stay with that line of questioning long enough, the Spirit will eventually reveal the answer. What God showed me when I asked Him these questions was this: “I never intended for you to serve me. In fact, you can’t serve me. I never intended for you to try in your own effort to make yourself holy. And as long as you keep striving, I let you, until you come to the end of yourself.”

Just about every problem you’ll face in your Christian life is due to not believing right. That’s it. Now, I get it: believing right isn’t always easy. In fact, often it’s downright impossible. Why? Because you cannot even believe right unless the Holy Spirit empowers and enables it. When I think back on my 32 years as a disciple of Christ, the times when I was transformed—where I was truly catapulted into a newer, better way of life—all had one thing in common: They were all times where I uttered, “I was blind, but now I see.”

By the grace of God, there came a point in my Christian life when I realized that I would never escape the Romans 7 trap if I kept believing that I could obey God. But once I saw in the spirit that it is actually Christ in me Who is obeying God, my life started to change. Paradoxically, I began “obeying God on accident.” I realized the truth of Romans 6 — I really did die with Christ.

Listen to Pastor Cliff teach us the blessings, healing, and deliverance that come from true obedience to God.

Jesus once said: “You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life” (John 5:39-40).

This is the danger of not drawing the distinction between the Bible and the Word of God. It makes the Scripture itself to be life. But only Jesus is the life. Listen to brother Brett teach us about knowing God and knowing His word.

We make this Christian life a heavy burden and a suffocating yoke for believers. But it isn’t supposed to be this way. It’s only this way because we haven’t understood Who’s doing the work. What does Philippians 2:13 say? It says it is God who is doing the work, not I. But if I don’t know that, I will continue to try to work to produce righteousness and holiness, which paradoxically makes them “dead works.”

The natural mind, however, cannot receive these spiritual truths. To the natural mind, “seeing is believing.” But to the spiritual mind, “Believing is seeing.” It’s backwards. Not knowing this backwards kingdom economy causes us lots of frustration as Christians. Listen to Pastor Mike conclude our Resurrection Sunday series on how we can believe the right truths about Jesus.

To consecrate is to purify and dedicate to a special purpose. Our Lord already consecrated us by His wondrous sacrifice on the Cross. He is now with us always, doing the will of the Father in us.

Galatians 2:20 reminds us that “the life we live is by the faith of the Son of God.” We don’t even live by our own faith. It is the faithfulness of our great Lord and God that carries us and gives us the grace to see victory, healing, and salvation.

“As believers, you and I live below the line, but we aren’t really below-the-line people. We are of God’s kingdom. But we live in a realm of temporal appearances that differ from what God sees in the unseen and eternal. Spiritual growth is a process of replacing temporal appearances with eternal reality, and living out of it” (Rest of the Gospel, p. 32).

Matthew 28:19, "Go therefore, and make disciples." That word for "go" in Greek connotes "leaving to die" or "departing this life, as in death." Listen to Pastor Mike discuss the significance of this death in the life of a believer.

“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” — Galatians 2:20

From Jesus comes every supply. He is our total sufficiency. From Jesus comes grace and love and everything we need. We want to see more of Jesus in 2023. The clearer we see Him, the clearer we see ourselves as well.