Let's take a look at an old favorite story. The story of Jonah and the big, mondo, Horkin-big fish. We can learn a lot about God from the story of Jonah. We can also learn a lot about us from this story. Very often we are just like Jonah. God tells us to do something hard, we say "No way God." God takes us through lessons (sometimes very hard lessons) to teach us who He is and what He wants from us. God wants us to look at Him and not at the thing that He has asked us to do. Sometimes when...

From the Intro of the studyImagine yourself on an archeological expedition to Mexico. You are to go to those ancient Aztec temple ruins and find the mummy of an Aztec king named "Hooba-hooba-snarfblat-foo-foo head" or "Hooba" for short, buried deep within the ruins of the Aztec temple named "No enter this-ol' temple unless you want a gazillion fire-breathing ants crawling into your nostrils and eating your brain" or "Oog" for short.King Hooba had a slight problem naming thin...

There are people in the Bible who are well known, like Paul, and Peter, and John. We all know that they were a very important part of the early church. There are others who were just as important to the church but are not that well known. Barnabas is one of those people. But as we will find out, he had a very important role in the early church. Let's see who he is and why God included him in the Bible.

It was the beginning of another day. The stars disappeared as night gave way to day. The horizon looked like as if it was on fire with brilliant colors of gold, yellows, and deep shades of blue.You had spent the night out under the stars on a hill a short distance away from the town you grew up in. It was a sleepy, little town nestled in a lush, green valley. The grass on the hill was glistening with dew as if there were diamonds on the tips of each blade of grass.As you we...

Imagine that you were headed to church early one Sunday morning. You had set out your "church clothes" the night before so that you would wear the right clothes. You picked out a white pair of pants and cool looking shirt. You wanted to look your best at church. There was this one girl that you wanted to impress. So you spent 2 hours in the morning to spiff yourself up. You put your clothes on and brushed your teeth. You weren't even going to eat breakfast because you wanted to take the ex...

Ever get the feeling that you and your parents don't live in the same world or maybe even the same planet as you do? Maybe God created parents out of moon dust instead of earth dust and that's why they seem to be really out of this world. Why do you suppose that God created parents in the first place? Did He create them just to make your lives miserable? Maybe He was on vacation when parents were created and He just left it up to His angelic assistants to do it.For the next couple ...

We've all heard the about WWJD (What Would Jesus Do). This series is called WDJD (What Did Jesus Do). Jesus came to earth so that He could understand what it was like to live in a fallen world, and to live in human bodies. Jesus also came to earth to give us a glimpse of what God is like. He came to earth to fulfill all of the thousands of prophecies about Him. Finally, He came to earth to give us a path to get to heaven. He died on the cross to save us from our sins. He rose again to kick...

The following is taken from intro story.Imagine that you loved Mike and Ike's (the candy). You loved them so much that you would do anything to get them. In fact, you loved them so much that you would dream about them when you were at school. You couldn't wait until payday. That's when your mom would give you your monthly allowance. Each month, when she would give you your $12.29 allowance, you'd race to the closest grocery store, head directly towards the candy aisle and grab yours...

We live in a world that seems to be crumbling at the seams. We live in a world that is full of fear. People are in fear of the future. People live in fear of their lives. Your generation is growing up in a world of guns, terrorist attacks, and lots-o drugs. It seems that our country has taken all their morals and tossed them out the window. How can a person growing up in this world be assured of anything? Can a person really live at peace? Can a person live in this country, in this world, ...

Imagine that God allowed you to take a trip to heaven and tour His palace. Somehow you were transported to heaven. There you stood at the doors to His palace. They looked pretty cool. You knocked on the door and God opened it up and said to you, "Welcome, . I have been expecting you. I understand you want a tour of my palace". You are just a little shaky, Okay, you are like really totally freaked out because you are standing in the presence of God. You try to answer Him but the words aren'...

In our Old Testament Snapshot study we talked about the prophecies and how important they would be to those who were going to be around when Jesus was alive. The prophecies were so important that without them the people would have had a hugely, mondo difficult time, probably impossible, in recognizing the Messiah when He finally came. God knew that the people would need positive proof that Jesus was the Messiah. God just didn't provide one or two prophecies to show the people that Jesus wa...

Sometimes we get caught up in talking and forget that God gave us two ears with which we can hear each other. God also gave us spiritual ears that He uses to communicate with us. God is a relational being. That means that He created us so that we can have a relationship with Him, our Creator. But sometimes we fill our lives up with so much noise that we drown God's voice out.In order to hear God, we need to be tuned to Him. If we don't practice this "tuning in" process, it can go w...