Refuge Church Ojai Valley

Our world loves talking about sex, but it doesn’t like talking about what Jesus has to say about it. From the beginning of God’s creation sex is there, the question is, do we know why it was given to us? Do we care why it was given to us? And do we see the destruction it wreaks when we ignore its purpose and intention?

Everyone who ever takes a breath holds some measure of power. God creates us as humans who have an effect on one another and the environemnt around us. We don’t think about it much, but it's there. The question is - how do we and should we use that power? The world is telling us all the time that we should use it to serve ourselves, but Jesus has a different message and someone close to him lives it out her entire life. Jesus calls us to be unreasonable with how we manage the power that God gives us and his mother, Mary, shows us what might look like.
 
#mothersday #motherhood #sermons 

Who do you go to to teach you and guide you in your relationship with money? For followers of Jesus we must go to him. The world has all kinds of ideas about how we should view money, but for followers of Jesus his way is the only way. #RCOV #ojai #god #healing #money #faith #truth #Jesus #faith #moneytalks

What does it look like to be not just a fan of Jesus, but a true follower? Join our Associate Pastor, Zack Totten, in this message on what the resurrection means for our lives. 

It’s not hard to meet someone who believes that faith is a good thing, but when you dig deep, it's not actually real or true. For a Christian, Easter is THE thing that makes our faith real and true. Every human wants to know that hope is possible, Easter is God’s response to that desire.

We all have things that we just can’t seem to get distance from. We worry and fret or hurt and suffer from things that we just can’t seem to leave in the past. What does Jesus say to that? Is there any hope? 

We like to hide our shame. Even when it’s obvious we will try and direct attention elsewhere. But what if the things that make us most uncomfortable about ourselves are the things that, once we give them to Jesus, can be a witness to us actually having hope in our lives?

If Jesus showed up in the flesh in your life right now, what would you expect Him to do? Is there a miracle you would ask him for? Is there a problem you would ask Him to solve? In the Bible it seems that whenever He showed up, He made things happen, but often they weren’t what people were expecting him to do. Is there something we are missing about what we need and what God wants to actually give us? #RCOV #ojai #god #healing #healingjourney #faith #truth #Jesus #faith

What does faith in Jesus look like? In the book of Luke, we see faith embodied when a group of friends stop at nothing to get their friend to Jesus. Once they get to him, he surprises them and everyone by not only healing their friend, but pointing to a much deeper issue that he is also healing him from. Their willingness to get their friend to Jesus changes everything, not only for their friend, but them too. Do we live like that? Do we do whatever we can to get our friends to Jesus? Do we do whatever we can to get ourselves to Jesus?

It doesn’t seem like we talk about Sabbath much in our world today. Even churches rarely speak on the topic. But in Jesus day talking about Sabbath in the wrong way could get you killed. In fact, it's after he heals a man on the sabbath and proclaims himself the Lord of the Sabbath that the religious leaders of his day start plotting to put him to death. Why? What was Jesus claiming? What was he trying to get the people then and us today to see? #RCOV #ojai #god #healing #healingjourney #faith #truth #Jesus #faith