Santa Maria Foursquare Church

We are continuing in our series of Upgrading our Faith and today our missionary and Pastor, Joel, teaches us about another way we can upgrade our faith – and that is by praying. While ALL prayer is communication with God, there are MANY different kinds of prayers that we discover in God’s Word.

We know that God reveals Himself to us, so it’s our responsibility to keep our eyes open and watch for what God would reveal to us. We have to take responsibility to be reading the Bible and to quiet ourselves to listen to the Holy Spirit. And after we receive His revelation, it’s our responsibility to respond with action. We can’t just receive the revelation and leave it at that. We must respond with action. Our active response to God’s revelation can look different depending on what God is revealing to you. So, you might be wondering if we can respond to God in so many different ways, why would worshipping in song ever be necessary? Why would God ever want you to respond that way? Pastor Kaelyn shares with us several reasons why responding to God by worshiping in song is very important for us to be able to upgrade our faith.

Today, Pastor Lisa shares about the HOW – How do we take what we hear from scripture about goodness, godliness, perseverance and love and add to our faith so that we can be people who are effective and productive? We will be learning together over the next few weeks on How to upgrade our faith so that we will be people who posses these qualities in great measure, increasing every day!

If faith is the operating system of Christian belief, and God's promises are the code, then love is absolutely the language in which it's written. Love is central to how our faith in Jesus is to be lived out. Without it, no matter how smart or spiritually powerful we are, we are useless! But when love is added to our faith, we become God's transforming agents of grace.

Forgiveness is one of the most challenging upgrades to our faith — but it's essential if we want to live free from the brokenness others have splashed onto our lives. And it's essential if we're to have a faith that's useful and effective. But it's hard! So what actually is forgiveness and how do we do it? Hint: it's NOT forgetting what's happened OR giving someone a pass to continue causing pain!

Faith that doesn't grow will just stop working. It becomes useless. So God's word tells us to add to our faith — or upgrade it. And the first upgrade that's needed is goodness, because faith alone doesn't make us good. And to upgrade to a faith that's good requires us to walk in repentance.

Did you know your faith needs upgrading? Just like your smartphone will stop working if you never update it — or worse yet it'll be hacked — Peter says your faith will become ineffective and unproductive. Dive into this new series about faith upgrades, and discover how they can cause us to thrive. Click this link for message notes: https://bit.ly/upgradedfaith-1

The book of Jude is just one chapter long but is packed with powerful truths about how we're to live as God's people. In Jude we learn to defend the faith and walk in God's mercy.

Psalm One presents a vivid picture of two types of people, the choices that they make, and the destinations they reach. Our key thought for this week will be the delight the righteous man has in reading, meditating, and applying the truths of Scripture, and the blessing that brings into his life.

There are many times when we get caught up or stuck in a place that we do not understand as we learn and explore more about God and His word. And often times when we get stuck, we choose to stay stuck because we do not want to ask questions. But, without questions there will not be a gaining of new knowledge or enhanced knowledge.

Have you ever had a "critical error" pop up on your computer? No fun. It can totally shut you down. As frustrating as they are, what's even worse are critical errors in our lives. And they can happen all too often in the areas of our faith. Today we're looking at three errors we can make that shut our faith down.

Do you need a breakthrough? A defining insight or event that puts you on track for the seasons ahead? What if you didn't have to wait for one of these breakthrough moments to strike from out of the blue, but could cultivate a life that grows them? Let's look at several practices of those who seem to have more breakthroughs than others.

One of the most frustrating things in our lives — especially when we're committed to following Jesus — is continuing to run into roadblocks. Who likes running into brick walls? What purpose could they serve? Why would God allow them? Today we're diving deeper into the conversation about God's will, and exploring what He may be up to in our lives.

How do you view God's will? Like a target, with his "perfect" will as the bullseye? Or like a wide-open field where you can run and be free? How you think about God's will has vast implications for how we live as followers of Jesus. Dive with us into this critical conversation.

Many people think God's will is a mystery or even unknowable. But that's not what the Bible shows us. We can absolutely know we are living in his will, doing just what we were created to do — and today we're discovering how that's possible.

So many things in life are "gray areas" — things about which good people (even Jesus-following people) have different opinions. How can we follow Jesus when the right answer isn't immediately clear? In Romans 14, Paul gives us four important lessons about navigating life through these gray areas while pleasing God and those around us at the same time.

As we have been talking about this unique name of this series, we’ve been using a graph in the process of identifying where we are — both as individuals and as a church. And whenever you’re tracking something good it goes UP & TO THE RIGHT. Maybe you find yourself somewhere in the middle of the graph. You may be asking, “I guess I’m pretty good, right? At least I’m not all the way down and to the left! What’s the big deal about moving up and to the right?” Well, today we learn that in Revelations we read Jesus' words that remind us that he wants us to be either hot or cold — never hanging out in the middle — what Jesus calls being LUKEWARM.

Have you ever thought: "I can't share my love of Jesus with a friend. I just wouldn't know what to say. I haven't learned enough Scripture." Those are pretty normal thoughts. But what we're learning is that we can always share what we've experienced — and we don't need to know all the answers. Just keep it natural, and keep it salty!

Pastor Jon Tyson from the 2022 Central Coast Men's Summit — an incredible gathering of men from 20 churches throughout the Central Coast of California. Session 3 — the Intentional Faither (plus Q&A with Pastor Jon). 

What if there had been no Christmas? What if Jesus had never come? We can barely imagine the catastrophic loss that would have been to humanity — whether people believe in him or not! His powerful influence has shaped all of our stories and has held back darkness from completely overtaking the earth. Much of that has to do with his unrelenting love. He came to the world because of love, and he embodied love, even to his death on the cross.