The Living Cornerstone

The Bait of Materialism - Audio

We all want stuff. Then we want more stuff. When we get too much stuff, we get a storage unit…..to store our stuff. There is a thing called retail therapy. It is the feeling we get when we initially purchase something that we want to make us happy. The brain releases dopamine, a chemical in the brain linked to pleasure and reward. But it wears off. It doesn’t last.

What Do You Do When You Find Yourself Caught! - Audio

This is the last in the series, Don’t Take the Bait. The first four messages were about how to avoid taking the bait of deception, temptation, impatience, materialism. But we all have probably taken the bait time and time again and have been “caught.” So why is it that we are caught, and what do we do when we are caught? Scriptures give us answers. Why are we caught? Our hearts wander from God. Like so many examples in scripture, we follow other things and put them before God. What do we do when we are caught? Return again and again to God, as many times as you need. God provided a way out of being caught by sin by His son’s death on the cross and resurrection. There is no condemnation and we are set free. But Satan would have us think differently. Scripture leads us pretty clearly to how much God loves us. And we tie this together with an old hymn, Come Thou Fount.

The Bait of Impatience - Audio

The Bait of Impatience is as easy as the car ahead of you at the traffic signal texting and the light turned green one whole second ago. You know what I mean. If you don’t lay on the horn, you may begin to say inside your own car, some very choice words intended for them. You may even do it on the way to church. I have. Impatience has its roots in selfishness. We want it our way at our time. It is actually natural to be selfish. We are selfish and impatient from birth. Patience, on the other hand, takes time to develop. It is a fruit of the Spirit and fruit takes time to grow and become ripe or mature. Joyce Meyer put it this way, “Patience is not just the ability to wait, it is how we act when we are waiting.”

The Bait of Temptation - Audio

Have you ever been in the wrong place at the wrong time? I certainly have. And being in the wrong place at the wrong time can sometimes get you into a mess. This is part 2 of a series on Don’t Take the Bait and this one is about the bait of temptation. Most times the thought of temptation is connected with sexual sin. And it is but not always. We are tempted in many ways and the temptations come at us endlessly at times. Jesus was tempted and prevailed. So He is our model. And being tempted is not a sin but acting on it is. This message looks at David and his encounter with Bathsheba. It gives some examples of other temptations and most importantly, how we can avoid temptation and how God looks at our temptation.

The Bait of Deception - Audio

Have you ever seen something online that when you saw it in real life, it was not the same? Like a vacation rental that looked beautiful, only to find that they didn’t seem to be the same places. How about being asked to click a link only to find out it was malicious? Like clickbait. The basis is to bait you into doing something that might not be good for you. Don’t Take the Bait. This week, the bait of deception is explored and how to avoid it. A story as old as the hills, the first example of deception in the bible. Adam and Eve and Satan are the characters. Satan’s goal is to deceive Eve into doing what God doesn’t want her to do,….eat from the tree in the middle of the garden. The Bait of Deception. Satan says it is ok, it looks ok, but it is a lie. And just like our lives can be sometimes, the story is predictable. What are some things to be cautious about and how to recognize the deception is what this message is about.