Trust in God

Money is not really a math problem, it's a heart problem. Because your treasure and your heart are inseparably linked, God asks for the tithe not because He needs your money, but because He wants what your money is attached to — your trust and your love. Tithing is simply the way you show, rather than tell, that God is truly first in your life.

Everything in your hands — your life, your time, your talents, your money — is not yours; it was entrusted to you by God and ownership never passed to you. The hopeful truth is that when we live as faithful managers instead of owners, God blesses us beyond whatever we give back, and one day we get to hear Him say, well done.

God invites us into the eighth wonder of the world — joining His mission with our time, talents, and resources — but that invitation only works if He truly holds first place in our lives. When we trust Him enough to put Him first, even when it costs us something we think we can't afford to give, He provides and blesses far beyond what we imagined.

Jesus offers a better way through the pain people cause us than the world's instinct for revenge. Instead of demanding equal payback, He calls us to forgive, release the offender to God, and even bless them, so that bitterness does not chain and ruin our lives, and so others might see Jesus in us.

Even when God feels silent, He is never absent — He's writing a story that only makes sense looking back, in the rearview mirror rather than through the front windshield. Like Esther, we're invited to step past our hesitation and join what God is already doing, not because He needs us, but because He wants us.

Every one of us carries a Goliath — pain, addiction, betrayal, fear — that feels bigger than we can beat. David's story shows that we defeat those giants not by our own strength but by recognizing their lies, stewarding our daily faithfulness, refusing to borrow someone else's anointing, and measuring the giant against our God instead of ourselves.

Getting stuck in struggle often isn't because struggle itself is wrong, but because we don't know how to navigate it — we try to fix it ourselves or ask God to rescue us, and when neither works we stay stuck. Pastor Linn walks through four questions to ask God about a struggle — is it my own foolishness, God's discipline, God's growth, or God putting my life on display — and shows that in each case the answer is the same: lean in rather than lean back.

When we're stuck between where we were and where God wants to take us, and an obstacle stands in the way, God rarely gives us the full picture first. He asks us to step out in obedience before we see the way through, to stand firm in faith when it feels like He's absent, and to remember His past faithfulness as fuel to trust Him now.

The moments that feel like a pause, a struggle, or an unanswered prayer are not signs God has abandoned us — they are often the very places God is doing His deepest work. Chasing success, comfort, or possessions will always disappoint, because those things were never meant to satisfy. Real transformation comes when we stop focusing on the table of things and start letting trials shape us to look like Jesus.

Satan is already a defeated enemy, so his main strategy is to deceive us into believing lies that keep us bound long after we're actually free. Pastor Linn walks through four of those lies — about obedience, deserving sin, God's goodness, and being too far gone — and shows that the truth of Scripture and the cross breaks every one of them.

Many of us live with an "I've got this" mentality until life shows us we don't. Pastor Brent walks through Proverbs 16:1-9 to show that real security comes not from our own plans but from committing every part of life—our motives, our pride, our future—to the Lord and letting Him determine our steps.

Anxiety feels like the human condition, but Jesus teaches that worry never actually solves anything. The disciples in the storm forgot two things: that Jesus was in the boat with them, and that He cared — and those are the same two things we forget when our own storms hit.