Port City Community Church - Audio Podcast

The pain of loneliness is part of the human experience. We’ve all encountered the pain of separation at one time or another. It doesn’t matter if you are in the midst of a sea of people or all by yourself behind closed doors, loneliness knows no bounds. When those feelings of loneliness begin to make an appearance, we do everything in our power to protect ourselves. Our culture’s tendency is to define loneliness as the absence of people, whether physically or emotionally. Since we believe loneliness is a people problem, we look for people solutions. The pain we are feeling is the pain of separation, but not the type of separation our mind tends to gravitate towards. Loneliness is the pain of separation created by sin. We are separated from ourselves, and others, because sin has separated us from God. We must realize that our loneliness problem starts with our relationship with God and that the presence of more people can’t fix the pain. Many of us don’t like being alone because we don’t know what to do with

Without a proper lens through which to view the world, everything is blurry and we don’t know which way to move. Our eyes can play tricks on us. This inevitably leads us to falter and stumble or, even worse, causes us to go down the wrong path in the opposite direction of where we intended. It is only a matter of time before frustration sets in. How did we get to be who we are? Each one of us experienced encounters that impacted the trajectory of our lives. It impacted and influenced our very core and made us into the person we are today. Without us realizing it, these encounters became the lens we used to view life. We see through the lens of what we want the most. This is why we need to pause long enough to reflect on the lens we use to view our circumstances. We want to see our life and, each moment we are given, as an opportunity to be formed and shaped by God, as well as reflect His heart to others. If we use this as our lens, we are able to recognize the daily encounters that come our way for persona

We all experience moments when our actions and words don’t line up with what we say we believe or who we say we are. How do we tend to respond to these moments? Our natural default is to tackle our behavior because we can quickly and tangibly deal with our problem and, most importantly, see results. However, if all we do is address our behavior, we ignore the bigger issue – our heart. During those moments when we look at the devastation our words, actions or thoughts caused, we are witnessing our heart expressing itself. The true state of our heart is making its appearance. The way in which we express ourselves flows from the condition of our heart. What is formed on the inside always gets expressed on the outside. Total transformation of the heart means that we submit ourselves to God’s truth. If we want our lives to be an authentic expression of God then we must allow God the access He needs to shape and mold us into His image by shaping and molding our heart. To be able to exhibit God’s nature comes fro

Formation is the process by which your life becomes an increasingly accurate expression of your true identity in Christ. God shaping and forming you is an expression of His love. You are being shaped into His image. This goes deeper than behavior modification. God isn’t interested in mindless obedience. He is after your heart. It’s not about changing your behavior. It’s about capturing and changing your heart, stepping into your new identity and growing deeper in your faith with Him. The reality is you can obey all the rules and still miss the point. If you want to be transformed, it starts with your mind and engaging in the process of awareness and alignment. It begins by examining what you believe, why you believe it and how those beliefs are impacting your actions and worldview. Then you take those beliefs and compare them to what God’s Word says. You must learn to surrender to the truth in order to be shaped by God. You must allow what you experience to sink deeper by positioning yourself to focus and d

An encounter happens when our reality gets challenged. There is a collision that occurs when our perspective of how things are or should be collides with the truth. Transformation and growth lie on the other side of every encounter you face. The reality is, you were made by God for God. You were created in His very likeness. The image of God is stamped on every human being, including yourself. You will never understand your life apart from him. Trusting this profound truth has the ability to frame every encounter and shape the way you see each moment. Knowing you were designed to reflect His love serves as the catalyst for the transformation you hope to see. If you were made for God then you will never find meaning and purpose apart from Him. An encounter with Jesus changes everything. When we collide with the Truth, it changes us: how we see things, how we respond and how we walk. Christ should impact our circumstances, our views and our values. He’s crafted you to reflect His heart. You must engage in the