Everyone wants to be happy; we all want to have lives filled with joy.  Yet so many Americans do not experience happiness.  How do we live with a deep, profound sense of joy?      First, connect with Jesus Christ.  French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascall once said, “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of each man which cannot be satisfied by any created thing but only by God...

       Around the world today millions will celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  One of the most basic and important Christian beliefs is that Jesus predicted his own death, died on a cross and rose from the dead.  We believe the evidence for this conviction is strong:  the fact of the empty tomb, the eyewitness testimony of hundreds of people and the transformation of the discouraged, dep...

      In all four gospels we are told the story of Jesus miraculously feeding the 5,000.  In actuality, since they only counted the men, the crowd could easily have been as high as 15,000 to 20,000.  Jesus asked the apostle who grew up nearby where they could buy food for everyone.  This question was to test him.  Philip did not respond with faith but with a practical answer that did not factor in...

     Each of us has been designed by God to make a contribution.  A key part of human flourishing is living out God’s purposes in our lives.  Every Christian is called to love God, love others, and make disciples of all nations, all three combining to bring God glory with our lives.  But how that plays out is very individual.  A public school teacher walks that out differently than a politician or...

      In so many places we are required to prove our identity.  If I travel to another country, I’d better have a passport showing who I am.  If I vote in Alaska, I have to show my driver’s license.  If I go to my bank to withdraw money from my account, I need to have ID with me.  Over a third of humanity claim to be followers of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.  Millions more view him as a social...