Occupy Until He Comes: Living With Purpose Between Now and Eternity

Centerpointe Apostolic Church •
October 5, 2026

6 Minute Read

There is a moment in Luke 19 that is easy to read past without fully absorbing its weight. Jesus is nearing Jerusalem, and the crowd around him is electric with anticipation. They are convinced that the kingdom of God is about to appear immediately. They want Rome overthrown. They want a throne established. They want everything set right, right now.

Jesus senses the expectation. And instead of simply riding the wave of enthusiasm, he stops and tells a story.

The parable of the ten servants in Luke 19 is not a comfortable story. It is a clarifying one. A nobleman leaves for a far country to receive a kingdom, entrusts his servants with resources, and gives them one command before he departs: occupy until I come. In the New King James rendering, that command becomes even more direct. Do business until I come.

Not sit. Not wait. Not simply show up. Do business.


The Space Between Departure and Return

The setting of that parable is, in many ways, the exact setting in which the church finds itself today. Jesus has come. Calvary has happened. The grave has been defeated. The Holy Spirit has been poured out. And yet he has not returned. We are living in the space between his departure and his return, and the question that every believer must honestly wrestle with is this: what are we supposed to do while we wait?

The answer the parable gives is not passive. It is not merely about attendance or preservation. It is about productivity, engagement, and stewardship. The nobleman did not leave his servants empty-handed. He placed something of value in their care and expected a return. God operates the same way. He never gives responsibility without also giving opportunity. He fills his people with his Spirit, as Acts 1 makes clear, not simply so they can speak in tongues in a church building, but so they can be witnesses. The evidence of the Spirit points toward an assignment, not just an experience.

What Has Been Placed in Your Hands

Every believer has been entrusted with something. The Word of God. A testimony. Time. Influence. Relationships. Gifts and abilities that were woven into the fabric of who you are before you were ever born. The question is not whether God has placed something in your hands. He has. The question is what you are doing with it.

This is where the parable becomes uncomfortably personal. One of the servants in the story did not lose what he was given. He did not squander it or spend it recklessly. He wrapped it in a cloth and kept it safe, reasoning that his master was a hard man and he was afraid of failing. When the nobleman returned and called for an accounting, this servant presented the original amount, unchanged, untouched, and unproductive.

The master's response was not relief. It was rebuke.

Preservation is not the whole assignment. The truth was not handed down through generations so that it could be carefully wrapped and stored away. It was given to be spread. The Holy Spirit was not poured out so that believers could feel something extraordinary on Sunday mornings and then return to ordinary, self-focused weeks. It was given so that ordinary people could carry an extraordinary message into a world that desperately needs it.

Fear Is a Terrible Steward

The servant who buried his talent named his reason plainly. He was afraid. And fear, while understandable, is a devastating steward of kingdom resources. Fear buries gifts. It silences testimony. It keeps people from stepping into ministry, from reaching out to a neighbor, from sharing what God has done in their own life.

The world around us is not always friendly territory. Luke 19:14 makes that plain as well. The citizens of the nobleman's story sent word after him saying they would not have him reign over them. Hostility is not a new development. But the parable is equally clear that hostility never canceled the assignment. Resistance does not excuse inactivity. Rejection does not release anyone from responsibility.

Jesus declared in Matthew 16:18 that the gates of hell shall not prevail against his church. In the ancient world, the gates of a city were where legal decrees were posted, where the business of governance was conducted. The declaration of Jesus is that whatever hell announces, whatever the enemy declares, it cannot stand against the forward movement of the kingdom. The church was never pictured as hiding behind locked doors waiting for things to get easier. It was commissioned, empowered, and sent.

A Return and an Accounting

The nobleman in the parable does come back. And when he does, he calls his servants to account. Not to punish them for the difficulty of the work. Not to dismiss the challenges they faced. But to ask the only question that ultimately matters: what did you do with what I gave you?

The servants who had increased what they were entrusted with were not celebrated because they had matched each other. The one who gained five was not measured against the one who gained ten. Each was evaluated on the basis of his own stewardship, his own faithfulness, his own willingness to engage the assignment. This matters because the comparison trap is real. It is easy to look at someone else's platform, someone else's gifts, someone else's opportunities, and conclude that your own contribution is too small to count. But God is not grading on that curve. He knows what he placed in your hands. He is asking what you did with it.

The Assignment Is Not Over

The king has not yet returned. And as long as that is true, the assignment remains in force. There is still time to step into what God has called you to do. There is still time to tell your testimony, to pray with someone, to reach outside the comfortable circle of people who already share your faith. There is still time to ask God not what else he might give you, but what he wants you to do with what he has already given.

The parable ends with a return. It always does. And when the king comes back, he will be looking for people who were found working, not waiting. Occupying, not hiding. Doing business on behalf of the kingdom, not simply preserving a comfortable seat inside it.

The question worth sitting with today is a simple one.

What are you doing with what God has placed in your hands?

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From this Collection: Beyond The Message
October 25, 2026 • 6 Minute Read
The God Who Sees You
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God demonstrated His love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. He did not wait for us to become worthy of His attention. He did not require us to clean ourselves up before He would look our way. He turned His face toward us at our worst and went to Calvary anyway. You are not invisible. You are not forgotten. You are not too far gone. The God who saw Hagar in the wilderness, who saw the blind man at the gate, who knew Job's location even when Job could not find Him — that same God sees you right now, exactly where you are. The only question remaining is whether you will turn your heart toward the One who has already turned His face toward you.

Centerpointe Apostolic Church

October 19, 2026 • 6 Minute Read
Living in the Overflow: Moving Beyond Survival Into the Fullness of God's Spirit
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He did not save you so you could barely drag yourself across the finish line of heaven. He filled you with the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead, and he did it so that rivers, not drops, would flow from your life into the world around you. The question is not whether the river is available. The question is whether you are living in it. Stop praying just to survive the week. Stop marching back to the well for just enough to get by. The overflow belongs to you. Step into the river, and let it change everything around you.

Centerpointe Apostolic Church

October 12, 2026 • 6 Minute Read
Hell Can't Cancel Calvary
There are moments in life when circumstances seem to scream louder than the promises of God. Seasons when prayers go unanswered in the way we hoped, when the ground beneath us feels like it is eroding, when everything we were trusting for appears to be slipping away. In those moments, a question rises up from the deepest part of us: Is God still in control? The answer is an unshakeable, resounding yes. No matter what hell tries to start, it cannot stop God. The promises of God are not dependent upon the cooperation of our circumstances. If He declared something to happen, it is going to happen. Hell cannot cancel Calvary. The Promise Was Never Plan B To understand the power of that statement, we have to go back to the very beginning. In Genesis chapters one and two, God created humanity in His own image and placed them in a garden of perfect fellowship. There was no sin, no shame, no separation. But in Genesis three, the serpent entered the picture and convinced Adam and Eve that what they had was somehow less than what they deserved. Sin entered the world, and with it, death. From a human perspective, everything appeared to be lost. But here is what is remarkable: God was not surprised. He did not wake up scrambling for a backup plan. Before He ever drove Adam and Eve from the garden, He spoke directly to the serpent in Genesis 3:15, declaring that the seed of the woman would bruise the serpent's head. In other words, before the dust had even settled on the first act of human rebellion, God had already announced that the enemy would not have the final word. Calvary was not an emergency response to an unexpected crisis. It was God's eternal plan. As 1 Peter 1:18-20 makes clear, Christ was foreordained as the spotless lamb before the very foundation of the world. The cross was not evidence that God's purpose had failed. It was the ultimate revelation of how far God was willing to go to redeem broken humanity. When Hell Tried to Stop the Promise Throughout history, the enemy launched repeated assaults against God's redemptive promise, and each time he failed. In Exodus 1:15-16, Pharaoh commanded the Hebrew midwives to kill every newborn Israelite son, attempting to extinguish the people through whom God's promise would be fulfilled. But the midwives feared God above Pharaoh, and the very household trying to destroy Israel ended up raising Moses, the man God would use to lead His people out of bondage. God did not panic. He had a plan. Centuries later, a wicked queen named Athaliah attempted to destroy the royal descendants of David by killing her own grandchildren, hoping to seize the throne and sever the lineage through which the Messiah would come. But a young boy named Joash was hidden away in the house of God for six years. When he was brought out and crowned king in 2 Kings 11:12, the royal line was preserved. Athaliah could seize a throne, but she could not cancel a covenant. Then came Herod. When the wise men arrived in Jerusalem asking where the newborn King of the Jews could be found, Herod ordered the slaughter of every male child two years old and under in Bethlehem. But God had already warned Joseph in a dream, recorded in Matthew 2:13, to take the child and flee to Egypt. Jesus was preserved. The promise kept moving forward. Different generations. Different rulers. Different strategies. The same result every single time: God's redemptive purpose continued marching forward because you cannot stop what He has already set in motion. What Looked Like Defeat Was Victory When Jesus stood before Pilate, when Judas had betrayed Him and His disciples had scattered and the crowd that had praised Him days earlier cried out for His crucifixion, everything appeared to be over. From every earthly angle, it looked like the opposition had finally succeeded. But what appeared to be the greatest defeat in human history was actually the greatest victory the world has ever known. Jesus was not dragged helplessly to Calvary. In John 10:17-18, He declared plainly that no one was taking His life from Him. He was laying it down willingly. When soldiers came to arrest Him in the garden and He spoke His name, they fell backward to the ground (John 18:6). He lacked nothing in terms of power. He simply understood the assignment. Colossians 2:14-15 describes what happened at the cross in triumphant language: the handwriting of ordinances against us was blotted out and nailed to His cross, and the principalities and powers were openly defeated. The cross was not merely a place of suffering. It was a place of the most decisive victory ever won. The Promise Is Still Alive On the day of Pentecost, Peter stood before a crowd and preached Christ crucified, buried, and risen. When the people were cut to the heart and asked what they should do, Peter's answer in Acts 2:38 was direct: repent, be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Then he added something that reaches across every generation: this promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all who are far off. That means the promise is still alive today. It has not lost any of its power. It is as active and available now as it was on that day in Jerusalem. If you find yourself weary, if your circumstances seem to contradict everything you have been believing for, if you feel like the enemy has gained the upper hand, hear this clearly: your past does not have the final word over your life. Your failures do not have the final word. Your circumstances do not have the final word. Jesus Christ has the final word. The promise that was announced in a garden, preserved through generations of attack, and fulfilled through death, burial, and resurrection is still marching forward. Numbers 23:19 reminds us that God is not a man that He should lie. When He says something is going to happen, it is going to happen. Stand on the Word. Claim the promises. Worship through the weariness. Hell cannot cancel Calvary.

Centerpointe Apostolic Church

Currently Reading
October 5, 2026 • 6 Minute Read
Occupy Until He Comes: Living With Purpose Between Now and Eternity
There is a moment in Luke 19 that is easy to read past without fully absorbing its weight. Jesus is nearing Jerusalem, and the crowd around him is electric with anticipation. They are convinced that the kingdom of God is about to appear immediately. They want Rome overthrown. They want a throne established. They want everything set right, right now. Jesus senses the expectation. And instead of simply riding the wave of enthusiasm, he stops and tells a story. The parable of the ten servants in Luke 19 is not a comfortable story. It is a clarifying one. A nobleman leaves for a far country to receive a kingdom, entrusts his servants with resources, and gives them one command before he departs: occupy until I come. In the New King James rendering, that command becomes even more direct. Do business until I come. Not sit. Not wait. Not simply show up. Do business. The Space Between Departure and Return The setting of that parable is, in many ways, the exact setting in which the church finds itself today. Jesus has come. Calvary has happened. The grave has been defeated. The Holy Spirit has been poured out. And yet he has not returned. We are living in the space between his departure and his return, and the question that every believer must honestly wrestle with is this: what are we supposed to do while we wait? The answer the parable gives is not passive. It is not merely about attendance or preservation. It is about productivity, engagement, and stewardship. The nobleman did not leave his servants empty-handed. He placed something of value in their care and expected a return. God operates the same way. He never gives responsibility without also giving opportunity. He fills his people with his Spirit, as Acts 1 makes clear, not simply so they can speak in tongues in a church building, but so they can be witnesses. The evidence of the Spirit points toward an assignment, not just an experience. What Has Been Placed in Your Hands Every believer has been entrusted with something. The Word of God. A testimony. Time. Influence. Relationships. Gifts and abilities that were woven into the fabric of who you are before you were ever born. The question is not whether God has placed something in your hands. He has. The question is what you are doing with it. This is where the parable becomes uncomfortably personal. One of the servants in the story did not lose what he was given. He did not squander it or spend it recklessly. He wrapped it in a cloth and kept it safe, reasoning that his master was a hard man and he was afraid of failing. When the nobleman returned and called for an accounting, this servant presented the original amount, unchanged, untouched, and unproductive. The master's response was not relief. It was rebuke. Preservation is not the whole assignment. The truth was not handed down through generations so that it could be carefully wrapped and stored away. It was given to be spread. The Holy Spirit was not poured out so that believers could feel something extraordinary on Sunday mornings and then return to ordinary, self-focused weeks. It was given so that ordinary people could carry an extraordinary message into a world that desperately needs it. Fear Is a Terrible Steward The servant who buried his talent named his reason plainly. He was afraid. And fear, while understandable, is a devastating steward of kingdom resources. Fear buries gifts. It silences testimony. It keeps people from stepping into ministry, from reaching out to a neighbor, from sharing what God has done in their own life. The world around us is not always friendly territory. Luke 19:14 makes that plain as well. The citizens of the nobleman's story sent word after him saying they would not have him reign over them. Hostility is not a new development. But the parable is equally clear that hostility never canceled the assignment. Resistance does not excuse inactivity. Rejection does not release anyone from responsibility. Jesus declared in Matthew 16:18 that the gates of hell shall not prevail against his church. In the ancient world, the gates of a city were where legal decrees were posted, where the business of governance was conducted. The declaration of Jesus is that whatever hell announces, whatever the enemy declares, it cannot stand against the forward movement of the kingdom. The church was never pictured as hiding behind locked doors waiting for things to get easier. It was commissioned, empowered, and sent. A Return and an Accounting The nobleman in the parable does come back. And when he does, he calls his servants to account. Not to punish them for the difficulty of the work. Not to dismiss the challenges they faced. But to ask the only question that ultimately matters: what did you do with what I gave you? The servants who had increased what they were entrusted with were not celebrated because they had matched each other. The one who gained five was not measured against the one who gained ten. Each was evaluated on the basis of his own stewardship, his own faithfulness, his own willingness to engage the assignment. This matters because the comparison trap is real. It is easy to look at someone else's platform, someone else's gifts, someone else's opportunities, and conclude that your own contribution is too small to count. But God is not grading on that curve. He knows what he placed in your hands. He is asking what you did with it. The Assignment Is Not Over The king has not yet returned. And as long as that is true, the assignment remains in force. There is still time to step into what God has called you to do. There is still time to tell your testimony, to pray with someone, to reach outside the comfortable circle of people who already share your faith. There is still time to ask God not what else he might give you, but what he wants you to do with what he has already given. The parable ends with a return. It always does. And when the king comes back, he will be looking for people who were found working, not waiting. Occupying, not hiding. Doing business on behalf of the kingdom, not simply preserving a comfortable seat inside it. The question worth sitting with today is a simple one. What are you doing with what God has placed in your hands?

Centerpointe Apostolic Church

September 28, 2026 • 6 Minute Read
When Something Stands Between You and God: Reclaiming Clear Vision for Your Family
There is a simple but sobering experiment worth trying. Hold a book directly in front of your face. Nothing about you changes. Nothing about the room changes. But suddenly, your ability to see everything in front of you is gone. Something came between you and your view, and that was enough. That image captures one of the most quietly dangerous realities in the spiritual life. We do not lose our vision of God all at once. We rarely wake up one morning and decide to walk away from faith, abandon our values, or let our family drift. Instead, it happens gradually, almost imperceptibly, through small compromises, misplaced priorities, and subtle distractions that inch their way between us and the God we love. One quiet decision at a time, our vision becomes blurry. The First Commandment Is About Position, Not Rank When God gave Moses the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20, He said something worth examining very carefully. He did not say, "You shall have no other gods above me." He said, "You shall have no other gods before me." The distinction matters enormously. The issue is not merely about rank or hierarchy. It is about position. Whatever stands in front of God in your life will eventually distort how you see Him. An idol, in the truest biblical sense, is not limited to a golden statue or an ancient pagan deity. An idol is anything that moves between you and God until it begins to shape how you see Him. It could be a career, a relationship, money, or ambition. It could also be something less obvious: the need for approval, the grip of fear, the bitterness of offense, or the comfort of control. None of these things are inherently evil. The danger comes when a good thing moves into God's place. As the saying goes, a blessing becomes an idol the moment it occupies a position that belongs to God alone. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 that the enemy's strategy is not to steal your Bible or silence the gospel. His aim is to blind the mind. If he can distort your vision of who God is and what God can do, he does not have to force your decisions. Your distorted vision will make them for you. A Miracle in Two Stages In Mark chapter 8, Jesus heals a blind man in an unusual way. Rather than restoring the man's sight instantly, He does it in two stages. The man first says he can see people, but they look like trees walking. Jesus touches him again, and then he sees clearly. This has puzzled many readers over the years. Why would Jesus, who is fully capable of instant healing, work in stages? The answer becomes clear when you read the surrounding context. In the same chapter, Jesus asks His disciples who people say He is. Peter gives the remarkable answer: "You are the Christ." It is a moment of genuine revelation. But just a few verses later, when Jesus begins to explain that He must suffer, be rejected, and be killed, Peter pulls Him aside and rebukes Him. Jesus responds with a sharp correction: "Get behind me, Satan, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men." Peter did not lose his faith. He lost his clarity. He had received genuine revelation about who Jesus was, but his personal expectations and ambitions had stepped in front of that truth. He wanted a Messiah who fit the version of victory he had imagined. When Jesus did not match that image, Peter tried to reshape Him. The two-stage healing is not a picture of limited power. It is a picture of the Christian journey. Sanctification is a process. We see in part, we grow, we are corrected, and we see more clearly. The danger comes when we assume that because we have received light in one area, we see everything perfectly. Spiritual maturity is not reaching the place where you have all the answers. It is remaining teachable enough for God to keep correcting your vision. What You Place Before God, Your Children May Place Beside God This is where the conversation becomes deeply personal, especially for families. Exodus 20:5-6 speaks of God visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations. The word translated as "iniquity" carries three literal meanings: bent, twisted, and distorted. Idolatry does not just affect the worshiper. It bends the home, twists the priorities, and distorts the lens through which the next generation learns to see the world. Children are not born believing that success is life's greatest pursuit. They learn it by watching what the adults around them celebrate. They are not born thinking church is optional. They learn that by watching what is made optional. The choices made within a family's sphere of influence have a way of outlasting the people who made them. But here is the extraordinary hope embedded in that same passage. While the consequences of rebellion may reach three or four generations, God's mercy extends to thousands of those who love Him and keep His commandments. His grace is always longer than the reach of sin. The Declaration That Changes Everything In Joshua 24, a 110-year-old man who has fought battles, buried generations, and led a nation to the promised land gathers everyone together for his final message. He does not give a long list of rules. He simply draws a line and makes a declaration: "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." Joshua identifies three categories of gods his people were tempted by: the gods of their ancestors, the gods of their past bondage in Egypt, and the gods of the surrounding culture. The progression is familiar. Inherited idols, personal idols, and cultural idols are still the three great temptations facing every family today. His message is not complicated. It comes down to one word: choose. Faithfulness is never an accident. It is always a decision. Your greatest legacy is not what you leave to your children. It is what you leave in them. You can leave them material wealth, but if they never learn how to call on the name of God in a moment of crisis, what was the gain? A heritage of prayer, of worship, of knowing how to seek God in the dark, is worth more than any financial inheritance. Whatever has been broken in your family line is not the final word. Mercy is longer than your history. And today, you can be the generation that draws the line and says: it stops here.

Centerpointe Apostolic Church

September 21, 2026 • 6 Minute Read
Dysfunction Is Not Your Destiny: Breaking the Cycle and Building a Lasting Legacy
Every generation stands in the middle of two others. You inherit something from those who came before you, and you pass something on to those who come after. The question is not whether you will leave a legacy — you will. The only question that matters is what kind of legacy it will be. This is not a small question. The answer shapes families, communities, and futures that extend far beyond what any of us can see. The Power of Generational Influence Psalm 78, written by Asaph — a gifted musician and prophetic composer from the era of David and Solomon — opens with an urgent call to listen, to learn, and to teach. The psalmist declares that the stories of God's faithfulness must not be hidden from the next generation. They must be told, passed down, and lived out, so that each generation can set its hope anew on God rather than repeat the failures of those who came before. That phrase — "set its hope anew" — is worth sitting with. Every generation must discover God for themselves. Faith cannot be inherited like a piece of furniture. It must be personally pursued, personally embraced, and personally lived. But the environment in which that pursuit happens is shaped enormously by the generation that came before. This is the weight and the wonder of generational influence. What the Data Actually Shows In the mid-1700s, two men lived in roughly the same time and place in America. One was Jonathan Edwards, a revivalist, pastor, and theologian who rose at four in the morning and spent up to thirteen hours a day in prayer and study of Scripture. The other was a man named Max Jukes, whose life went in a drastically different direction. Nearly 150 years after their deaths, an American educator traced the descendants of both men. The contrast was staggering. From Jonathan Edwards came one U.S. vice president, three U.S. senators, three governors, thirteen college presidents, sixty doctors, one hundred lawyers, one hundred clergymen, and two hundred and eighty-five college graduates, among many others. From Max Jukes came seven murderers, sixty thieves, one hundred ninety prostitutes, four hundred forty alcoholics, and three hundred who died prematurely. Two men. Two directions. Centuries of consequences. This is not a story about perfection. Edwards himself came from a family that was far from spotless — his grandmother was considered a disgrace, and his family tree included violent criminals. He had a choice about which influence would define him, and he made it deliberately and daily. The Truth About Generational Curses There is a concept that circulates widely — the idea of generational curses, the belief that the sins of previous generations are somehow genetically transferred and inescapably passed down. This idea, while it contains a kernel of truth about consequences, can become deeply destructive when taken too far. It can become a prison. A person begins to believe that the dysfunction they were born into is simply the hand they were dealt, and there is nothing to be done but live inside it. Or it becomes an excuse — a way of shifting responsibility for present choices onto past generations rather than taking ownership of one's own life and decisions. Ezekiel 18:20 is clear that each person is accountable for their own sin, not the sin of their parents. Every individual stands before God on the basis of their own choices. Romans 5:12 confirms that death spread to all people because all have sinned — each person's own sin is the issue, not a curse inherited from someone else. What Deuteronomy 5:9 does describe is not a curse in the mystical sense, but the very real consequences and influence that flow from one generation's decisions into the next. Bad decisions produce painful consequences, and those consequences can ripple outward for generations. That is sobering. But it is not the whole story. One Generation Can Change Everything Deuteronomy 5:10 is where hope breaks through. While the consequences of rejecting God may affect three or four generations, God lavishes His unfailing love on a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commands. The math is not close. One generation of faithfulness opens the door to a thousand generations of God's overflowing goodness. All it takes is one person who decides to turn the tide. One father who declares, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." One mother who refuses to let tragedy define her family's future. One young adult who looks at the dysfunction they were raised in and says, "This stops with me." The story of Joseph in Genesis is a stunning illustration of this truth. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob formed one of the most famously dysfunctional family lines in all of Scripture — marked by deception, favoritism, jealousy, and betrayal. The pattern of lying ran so deep that it passed from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob without interruption. But Joseph refused to pick it up. Thrown into a pit by his own brothers, sold into slavery, falsely accused, and forgotten in prison, he had every reason to become bitter, to deceive, to retaliate. Instead, he maintained his integrity at every turn. And in the end, he looked at his brothers and declared that what they had intended for evil, God had turned for good. One man's faithfulness reversed the momentum of generations. The Decision in Front of You The failures of a previous generation do not have to define your future. The dysfunction of the past does not have to be the blueprint for your present. Just because a home was broken does not mean the next home has to be. Just because addiction, deception, or bitterness marked those who came before does not mean it must mark those who come after. The gospel exists precisely for this moment. The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the ultimate reversal — the point at which every curse of sin meets its match. By His wounds, healing is made available. Not just physical healing, but emotional, relational, and generational healing. You are standing in the middle of two generations right now. What will you pick up? What will you leave behind? What will you pass on? The direction you choose today is already shaping tomorrow. His mercy is forever. His kindness is forever. His goodness is forever. And one faithful generation is all it takes to set a thousand more on a completely different course.

Centerpointe Apostolic Church

September 14, 2026 • 6 Minute Read
Empty Vessels and Open Hands: What It Means to Let God Pour Into You
There is something quietly profound about an empty container. A bowl sitting on a counter, a jar waiting on a shelf — these things have no value in their emptiness alone. Their purpose is found only when something is poured into them. That image, simple as it is, captures one of the most important truths a person can wrestle with: God is ready to pour, but we have to be ready to receive. The Foundation That Holds Before anything can be poured out, there has to be something solid underneath. In Matthew 7:24-27, Jesus draws a vivid contrast between two builders. One hears the words of God and puts them into practice — and when the storms arrive, his house stands. The other hears the same words and does nothing with them — and when the storms arrive, his house collapses completely. The storms, Jesus makes clear, are coming either way. The rain does not skip the house built on sand just because its owner showed up to hear good teaching. The difference between the two houses is not the weather they face. It is the foundation underneath them when the weather hits. This is a truth that cuts through every layer of age and experience. It is not enough to sit in a room where the Word of God is being spoken. It is not enough to nod along, to feel the warmth of a worship service, to appreciate a moving message. The Word has to move from the ears into the hands and the feet. It has to become action. It has to become the daily choices we make when nobody is watching, the way we treat people when we are tired, the values we hold onto when holding on is costly. Hearing is the beginning. Doing is the foundation. A Woman, Two Boys, and a Little Bit of Oil In 2 Kings chapter 4, there is a story that does not get enough attention. A widow finds herself in a desperate situation. Her husband has died. A creditor has arrived at her door with a legal claim — pay the debt, or surrender her two sons. She has nothing. Almost nothing. She has one small jar with a little bit of oil inside. She does the only thing she knows to do. She goes to the man of God and lays her problem at his feet. His response is unusual. He tells her to go home, gather every empty vessel her neighbors can spare, and then begin pouring from her small jar. She does it. And the oil does not stop. It fills every bowl, every pot, every vase, every container she managed to borrow. The oil keeps flowing until there are no more empty vessels left. Then, and only then, does it stop. The detail worth sitting with is this: the oil stopped when the vessels ran out. Not when the miracle ran out. Not when God grew tired. The limiting factor was not the supply. It was the number of empty containers available to receive it. She paid her debts. She provided for her sons. God did not just rescue her from the crisis of that afternoon — He gave her a future. Dirty Dishes and Clean Hearts Here is where the image gets personal. A vessel that is already full cannot receive anything new. And a vessel that is dirty is not one anyone wants to eat from. Before God pours into a life, there is some housekeeping to do. The theological word for it is repentance, and it is less complicated than it sometimes sounds. It simply means coming to God honestly and saying, I have done things, said things, and thought about things that go against your Word. I am sorry. Will you forgive me? Will you help me turn and start making better choices? That is it. That is the beginning of a clean vessel. Repentance is not a punishment. It is a preparation. It is the washing of the dish before the meal is served. The plan laid out in Acts 2:38 follows this same logic. Repentance comes first, making room. Baptism in the name of Jesus Christ follows, representing the washing away of what was there before. And then God fills the vessel with His Spirit — the Holy Ghost, the presence of God living inside a human life. The sequence is not arbitrary. It is the order of a God who wants to pour into people who are ready to receive. When Prayers Move Mountains The widow's story is ancient, but the same God who multiplied her oil is still working today. The pattern has not changed. People face impossible situations. They go to God. They do what He says, even when it sounds unusual. And He moves. Prayers offered in faith still reach the ears of a God who listens. Doctors still sometimes walk into hospital rooms with reports that contradict everything they said five days earlier. Families that have been far from God for decades still find their way back. A father goes to church. A sister follows. A brother-in-law comes through the door for the first time in his life. A niece learns worship songs at home and sings them without being asked. God does not just answer the prayer in front of Him. He answers the prayers that have not even been prayed yet, moving in lives and generations that are still downstream. The oil did not stop because God ran out. It stopped because the vessels ran out. Hold Out Your Hands The question this story leaves behind is not whether God is willing to pour. He is. The question is whether we are positioned to receive. Are we built on a foundation that can hold when the storms arrive? Have we done the work of repentance, clearing out what should not be there? Are we holding out open, empty, clean hands and asking Him to fill us? Whatever you are carrying into today — fear, grief, debt, distance from God, a family situation that feels impossible — there is a God who sees it. He is not out of oil. He is not out of miracles. He is not out of grace. He is simply waiting for empty vessels.

Centerpointe Apostolic Church

September 8, 2026 • 6 Minute Read
Who Is Forming Your Family?
The family is under attack. That may sound like an alarming way to open a conversation, but if you have been paying attention to the world around you, it is not a surprising one. The pressures bearing down on the home today are relentless, and what makes them so dangerous is that most of them never knock on the door and announce themselves. They simply become part of the atmosphere, quietly shaping the way we think, the way we spend our time, and ultimately, the kind of family we become. So here is a question worth sitting with today: Who or what is forming your family? Something is. The only real question is whether it is something you have chosen, or something that has simply filled the vacuum left by the absence of intention. The Power of Intentional Legacy Psalm 78, verses 5 and 6, captures a vision that has been God's design from the very beginning. In it, God commands His people to teach His instructions to their children, so that the next generation might know them, and the generation after that, and the one after that. Faith was never meant to be accidental. Truth was never meant to be absorbed by osmosis. A lasting legacy is built on purpose, or it is not built at all. If we are not intentionally building something into our families, we will unintentionally pass along something we never meant to give them. By default, the inheritance becomes one of brokenness rather than blessing. The enemy of our souls is extraordinarily intentional. He comes, as Scripture says in John 10:10, to steal, to kill, and to destroy. He is particularly focused on the family because the family was God's institution, God's design, and therefore his primary target. The antidote is not perfection. It is intentionality. The Battle for Our Time Ephesians 5, verses 15 and 16, urges believers to walk carefully, not as fools but as wise people, making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil. The word translated as "circumspectly" in some versions carries the idea of looking around, being aware, not sleepwalking through life. A full calendar is not the same thing as a full life. A family can be involved in everything and deeply connected to nothing. The activities filling our schedules are not necessarily bad. Sports, school, work, appointments, and even church responsibilities are good things. But we must ask a harder question than whether we can fit something in. The better question is: What is this schedule producing in our family? Is it enhancing us or eroding us? Are we becoming the family God called us to be at the pace we are living? Protecting your family sometimes means saying no. Not every good opportunity is a God opportunity for your specific season of life. The goal is not an empty calendar. It is an intentional one. The Battle for Our Identity Colossians 2:8 warns against being taken captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy that depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ. Culture is relentless in telling us who to be, what success looks like, and what we should want. And because we are constantly absorbing information, comparison becomes almost unavoidable. But here is the liberating truth: we do not have to reinvent ourselves every time culture changes its mind. Our identity begins with the God who created us. Genesis 1:27 reminds us that we are made in His image, male and female, purposefully and uniquely designed. That foundation does not shift with trends or social movements. Our families need more than rules. They need to understand why we believe what we believe. Difficult questions deserve honest engagement, not avoidance. When our homes become safe places where truth is spoken clearly, questions are asked honestly, and love is never in doubt, we give our children something far more durable than a list of dos and don'ts. Conviction without relationship can feel like rejection. But relationship without truth eventually becomes abandonment. The goal is both, held together. The Battle for Our Thinking The pace of technological change is unlike anything previous generations have faced. Artificial intelligence is no longer a distant concept. It is embedded in our phones, our schools, our workplaces, and our homes. And like all powerful tools, it carries both potential and peril. The pursuit of unrestricted knowledge has always led God's people into trouble. The account of the Garden of Eden is instructive here. God did not withhold knowledge from Adam and Eve because He wanted to keep them ignorant. He wanted the relationship first. Through relationship, He would guide them into what they could handle. They short-circuited that process, and the consequences were catastrophic. The same dynamic is at play today. AI can assist our thinking, but it must never replace it. It can generate an apology, but it cannot humble a heart. It can produce a devotional, but it cannot build an altar in a home. It knows Scripture and will quote it back to you, but it will do so in service of validating your feelings rather than challenging you toward transformation. Proverbs 4:7 says that wisdom is the principal thing, and with all of our getting, we should get understanding. We need the Holy Spirit operating in our lives now more than ever, giving us the discernment to know the difference between what is real and what is imitation. The Battle for Our Attention Matthew 6:21 tells us that where our treasure is, our heart will be also. Whatever repeatedly receives our attention will eventually shape our priorities, our desires, and our affections. We are giving our attention to something every moment of every day. The only question is whether we are choosing it deliberately. Technology has made us the most connected generation in human history, and yet loneliness is at epidemic levels. Presence is not simply occupying the same room. It is the gift of focus, of eye contact, of listening to the mundane at 10:30 at night because that is when someone finally felt safe enough to open up. Protected spaces matter. A technology-free dinner table. An hour before bed without screens. One honest conversation. One prayer offered together. One Faithful Step You do not have to change everything today. But you can begin. One protected evening. One question asked and genuinely heard. One decision to put the phone down. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. That declaration from Joshua 24:15 was not made from a position of perfection. It was made from a position of resolve. It is available to every family, in every season, at every table. Something is forming your family. Make sure it is something you have chosen.

Centerpointe Apostolic Church

August 31, 2026 • 6 Minute Read
The Principle That Changes Everything: Putting God First in Every Area of Your Life
There is a thread woven through the entire fabric of Scripture, from the opening chapters of Genesis all the way through the letters of the New Testament, that most people either overlook or quietly choose to ignore. It is not a complicated thread to follow once you see it. But once you see it, you cannot unsee it. It is the principle of first fruits, and it has the power to reorder everything about the way you live, give, and trust God. More Than a Financial Conversation Before anything else, it is worth establishing something clearly: this is not really about money. Money is simply the lens through which a much deeper spiritual reality comes into focus. Jesus spoke about finances more than almost any other subject during His earthly ministry, and He did so because He understood the connection between our treasure and our heart. As He declared in Matthew 6:21, where a person's treasure is, that is precisely where their heart will follow. He did not say the reverse. He did not say that your treasure follows your heart. He said your heart follows your treasure. That distinction matters enormously. What we consistently invest in, what receives our time and energy and sacrifice, is what eventually captures our deepest affections. This is why the principle of firstfruits is not simply a financial strategy. It is a declaration of lordship. It is a statement about who is actually in charge of your life. A Principle From the Very Beginning In Exodus 13, God established something foundational with His people. He declared that whatever opens the womb, both among people and animals, belongs to Him. The firstborn was His. This was not an arbitrary rule. It was the establishment of a principle that runs like a river through the rest of Scripture: the first belongs to God. The principle deepened when God instructed in Exodus 23:19 that the very first of the first fruits of the land was to be brought to His house. Proverbs 3:9 echoes this same call, connecting the honoring of God with the first fruits of all increase to the promise that barns will be filled with plenty and vats will overflow. The order matters. The first portion is not what is left over. It is what comes first, before anything else is touched. The Story of Cain and Abel, Revisited Few stories in Scripture have generated more confusion than the account of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4. Why did God receive Abel's offering and not Cain's? The answer is embedded in the language of the text itself. Abel brought the firstborn of his flock. The Scripture is specific and deliberate about that detail. But when it describes what Cain brought, it simply says he brought an offering in the process of time. There is no mention of first fruits. There is only the suggestion that time passed, a harvest came, and eventually Cain brought something to God. The implication is clear. Cain did not make God first. He gave God what was convenient, what remained after time had passed and other priorities had been addressed. And God, who looks at the heart behind every offering, did not receive it. This is not a story about God being harsh. It is a story about the importance of priority and the posture of the heart. The Redemptive Connection Here is where the principle becomes breathtaking in its depth. In Exodus 13, the law regarding the firstborn specified that what was clean was to be sacrificed, and what was unclean had to be redeemed with a lamb. Centuries later, when John the Baptist stood at the banks of the Jordan River and pointed to Jesus, he declared in John 1:29 that this was the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The language was not accidental. Jesus was God's firstborn, clean and unblemished, offered as the first fruits sacrifice that would redeem everything that was unclean, which includes every one of us. Romans 11:16 states that if the first fruit is holy, the whole lump is also holy. This is the redemptive logic of the first fruits principle. When the first portion is consecrated to God, it sanctifies the rest. When you honor God with the first of your increase, the remainder of what you have comes under His blessing and His covering. What This Looks Like in Practice The practical application of this principle is straightforward, even if it requires genuine faith to live out. It means that when income arrives, the very first financial decision made is to give to God. Not after the mortgage is paid. Not after groceries are purchased. Not after every other obligation has been satisfied. First. Before anything else. This is not a prosperity doctrine. It is not a transaction where a certain gift guarantees a specific financial return. God does not operate like a vending machine. What He does promise, as stated in Malachi 3:10-11, is that He will open the windows of heaven and rebuke the devourer on behalf of those who honor Him with their tithes and offerings. Sometimes that looks like unexpected financial provision. Sometimes it looks like a car that keeps running, an appliance that holds together longer than it should, or a crisis that never materializes because God quietly intervened. The blessing does not always arrive in a form you can deposit. But it arrives. The Deeper Question The principle of first fruits ultimately asks a question that reaches far beyond finances. It asks whether God is truly first in every area of life. First in your schedule. First in your relationships. First in your ambitions and your plans and your future. First in your family, because even family can become an idol when it is elevated above God. Abraham was asked to offer Isaac, his only son, the very fulfillment of God's promise to him, as a sacrifice. God did not ultimately require Isaac's life. But He did require Abraham's willingness. He required proof that the promise had not replaced the Promise-Giver in Abraham's heart. That is the question the principle of first fruits places before every person who takes it seriously. Not simply, do I tithe? But rather, is God genuinely first? Is He Lord of all, or is He Lord of only the areas where surrender is comfortable and convenient? The invitation is open. Give God the first and the best, and watch what He does with the rest.

Centerpointe Apostolic Church

August 24, 2026 • 6 Minute Read
Who Holds Your Wallet? Rethinking the Way We Give
There is a question that most of us would rather not sit with too long: who is actually in charge of your finances? Not who manages the budget, not who pays the bills, but who is the true authority over the money that flows in and out of your life? It is a question that cuts right to the heart of faith, trust, and what we actually believe about God. Money is one of the most spiritually loaded subjects in all of Scripture. Jesus addressed it more than almost any other topic. In Matthew 6:24, he made a statement that was as blunt as it was profound, declaring that no one can serve two masters — a person will either love one and hate the other, or be loyal to one and despise the other. He concluded that no one can serve both God and money. That is not a suggestion. That is a diagnosis of the human heart. So the real question is not whether money is important. It clearly is. The question is whether money is your master or your tool. The Difference Between Tithing and Offering Most conversations about church giving stop at the tithe. Ten percent. One in ten. It is clean, it is mathematical, and once you have it figured out, it feels manageable. But Scripture does not stop at the tithe. In Malachi 3, God confronts his people with a piercing question: will a man rob God? When they ask how they have robbed him, the answer is telling. Not just in tithes. In tithes and offerings. Both. Together. The tithe and the offering are connected, and ignoring one while honoring the other leaves something unfinished in the spiritual economy of your life. The tithe is the foundation. It is the acknowledgment that everything you have came from God in the first place. The offering, however, is something different entirely. There is no fixed percentage attached to it. It is not a formula. It is a response — a willing, heartfelt, Spirit-led response to the goodness of God in your life. A Willing Heart Changes Everything When Moses was commissioned to build the tabernacle, he did not send out invoices. He did not mandate a percentage. He asked for offerings from everyone whose heart moved them to give, as described in Exodus 25. The qualification was not wealth. It was willingness. God wanted the sanctuary built from the overflow of grateful hearts, not reluctant checkbooks. This matters because it reframes the entire conversation. Giving is not a tax. It is not a religious obligation you check off a list. It is an act of worship that flows from a heart that has genuinely reckoned with how good God has been. When you stop and honestly consider the health you have, the abilities you possess, the relationships you enjoy, the income you earn — and you trace all of it back to its source — something shifts. Gratitude has a way of loosening the grip of self-sufficiency. And self-sufficiency is the real enemy here. The American ideal of being a self-made person sounds admirable on the surface, but underneath it is a quiet declaration of independence from God. It says: I do not need anyone. I can take care of myself. That posture, however culturally celebrated, is spiritually corrosive. It turns financial security into an idol, and idols always demand more than they give. The Blessing of Becoming a Giver Here is what Scripture consistently promises to those who learn to live with open hands: a blessed life. Acts 20:35 records these words of Jesus — it is more blessed to give than to receive. That is not a platitude. It is a principle woven into the very fabric of how human beings are designed. Generous people are, over the long arc of life, happier, more connected, and more free than those who hold tightly to what they have. There is even a physiological dimension to this. When you give willingly, your body releases chemicals associated with joy and connection. When you withhold stingily, your body produces cortisol — the stress hormone. It is as if God hard-wired generosity into the very biology of the human body, making it impossible to separate spiritual health from the posture of an open hand. Beyond personal joy, generosity builds relationships. It leaves a legacy. Psalms 37:25 describes the righteous person as one who is always generous, and whose children become a blessing. Generous parents raise generous children. The way you handle money in your home right now is teaching the next generation either to trust God or to trust themselves. The Widow and the Offering Pan Perhaps no story captures the spirit of true giving better than the one recorded in Mark 12. Jesus sat down across from the offering area and watched as people brought their contributions. The wealthy gave large amounts — impressive by any human measure. Then a poor widow came and dropped in two small coins, worth almost nothing in practical terms. Jesus called his disciples over immediately. He told them she had given more than everyone else. Not because the amount was larger, but because it cost her everything she had. The smallest offering ever recorded became the most celebrated act of generosity in the New Testament. It was not the size of the gift that moved Jesus. It was the size of the trust behind it. Settling the Question The invitation here is not to give until it hurts for the sake of hurting. It is to settle the question of who is actually Lord of your life — including the parts that feel most personal, most protected, most yours. For most people, that place is their finances. What would it look like to hold your income with an open hand? To ask God not just how much to keep, but how much to give? To become so naturally generous that giving feels less like a decision and more like a reflex — like tying your shoes? The promise on the other side of that question is not just a full barn, though Scripture speaks of that too. It is the freedom that comes from no longer being enslaved to your possessions. It is the joy of being used as a conduit of God's love in the world. It is the deep, settled peace of knowing that the one who holds your future is the same one who holds your wallet — and he is very, very good at his job.

Centerpointe Apostolic Church

August 17, 2026 • 6 Minute Read
The King's Invitation: Three Calls That Will Change Everything
There is something uniquely powerful about receiving a genuine invitation. Not the kind that simply needs a body to fill a seat, but the kind that opens a door to a world you never knew existed. Think about the invitations that have shaped your life -- the person who saw something in you before you saw it in yourself, the mentor who pulled you into a larger vision, the relationship that permanently expanded the boundaries of your world. Those moments carry weight because they were personal, intentional, and life-altering. Now consider this: the greatest invitation ever extended is not from a mentor, a leader, or even the most admirable person you could imagine meeting. It comes from the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And according to Revelation 3:20, that King is standing at the door of your life right now, knocking, waiting for you to open it so that he can come in and share the most intimate kind of fellowship with you. That invitation deserves your full attention. Throughout the ministry of Jesus, three specific invitations emerge that form a complete picture of what it means to truly follow him. Each one builds on the last. Each one is essential. Together, they represent the full scope of the life he is calling us into. Come and Drink The first invitation is found in John 7:37-39, where Jesus stood during a great feast and called out to anyone who was thirsty to come to him and drink. He was not talking about water. He was speaking about the Holy Spirit -- the very presence and power of God that would flow from within every believer who received him. This is where everything begins. The Holy Spirit is described in Scripture as both a comforter and a guide, and it is worth noting that those two roles are deeply connected. Where the Spirit guides, comfort will be needed. Following God is not a passive experience. It will take you places that are uncomfortable, challenging, and sometimes costly. The invitation to drink deeply of the Spirit is not a luxury -- it is a necessity. There is an important distinction to hold onto here. Believing in Jesus Christ is powerful and transformative. Something genuinely changes the moment a person places their faith in him. But belief is conception, not birth. The new birth that Jesus described to Nicodemus in John 3 is a specific experience, one accompanied by the evidence of speaking in tongues as the Spirit gives utterance, just as it was on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2. This is not a denominational preference. It is a biblical directive, and the invitation stands open to anyone who is thirsty. Do not let family tradition or religious tradition talk you out of coming to drink. The Spirit of God is available, and he is the power source for everything else that follows. Come and Die The second invitation is the one most people quietly try to skip. In Matthew 16:24, Jesus made it plain: anyone who wants to follow him must deny themselves, take up their cross, and come after him. In the days when those words were spoken, no one misunderstood the imagery. A person carrying a cross was not coming back. The cross was an instrument of execution, and Jesus was using it deliberately. Self-denial is not a single dramatic moment. It is a continual series of choices. It is choosing God's commands over personal comfort. It is choosing forgiveness when revenge feels far more satisfying. It is choosing to war against sinful desires and selfish ambitions rather than letting them run unchecked. It is refusing to let your mind wander freely into territory that diminishes your spirit and weakens your walk. We live in a screen age, and the screens are winning. The unguarded mind is revealed in what we scroll through and what we choose to watch. An undisciplined thought life leaves us wide open to whatever the culture wants to feed us, and then we wonder why we feel spiritually malnourished. First Peter 1:13 calls us to gird up the loins of our minds -- to take our thought lives seriously, because the mind is by far the most productive area of our entire being. Here is the critical connection between the first and second invitations: you cannot fully accept the invitation to come and die without first having accepted the invitation to come and drink. The Spirit is what empowers the dying. It is what gives you the strength to forgive the person you grew to hate, to lay down the ambition that was consuming you, to step off the throne of your own life and let someone greater sit there. Philippians 4:8 gives us the alternative diet for our minds -- whatever is true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report. These are the things worth thinking about. This is the table worth eating at. Come and Rest The third invitation is the one that makes the other two sustainable. In Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus extended one of the most tender calls in all of Scripture, inviting everyone who is worn down by labor and weighed down by burdens to come to him and find rest. His yoke, he said, is easy. His burden is light. The image of a yoke is instructive. When two animals are yoked together, one is always stronger. Jesus is our pulling partner, and when we are yoked to him, he decides the direction, the weight, and the speed. Isaiah 40:31 reminds us that those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength -- they will soar, they will run, they will walk without fainting. The key word is wait. The key posture is yoked to him, learning of him, following his lead. The theme running through all three invitations is the same single word: him. Come to him. Die to self for him. Rest in him. Learn of him. The King is knocking. The invitation is real, it is personal, and it is for anyone who will open the door. Whatever you need -- a drink of his Spirit, the grace to die to yourself, or simply rest for a soul that is exhausted -- he is offering it right now. Open the door.

Centerpointe Apostolic Church

August 10, 2026 • 6 Minute Read
Who's the Boss? Reclaiming Dominion Over Money, Materialism, and the Masters We Choose
There is a question that most of us never stop long enough to answer honestly. It is not complicated. It does not require a theology degree or years of biblical study. But it may be one of the most searching questions a person can sit with: Who is actually in charge of your life? Not who you say is in charge. Not the answer you would give in a Sunday school class or around a dinner table with family. But who is genuinely, functionally, practically running the show when the bills come in, when the paycheck lands, when the opportunity presents itself to hold on to just a little more than you were planning to give? That question is at the heart of what it means to pursue something the Bible calls dominion. Back to the Beginning The concept of dominion is not a modern invention. It stretches all the way back to the opening pages of Genesis, where God spoke creation into existence and then did something remarkable. He invited humanity into partnership with Him. In Genesis 1:26, God declared His intention to give human beings dominion over the earth, establishing a relationship of stewardship and shared authority between Creator and creation. But something went wrong. Adam, placed in the garden by grace and given authority by God, reached for something through human effort that God had already promised to provide through divine grace. He was impatient with the process. He wanted the shortcut. And in doing so, he forfeited the very gift he had been given. The lesson embedded in that ancient story is painfully relevant. More often than not, the greatest damage in our lives is not done by our enemies. It is done by our own impatience, our own insistence on doing things our way, on our timeline, by our methods. But the story does not end in the garden. Hebrews 2:9 reminds us that Jesus, through His suffering and death, reclaimed what was lost. What Adam forfeited through sin, Jesus came to restore. The path back to genuine dominion, to ruling and reigning in the way God originally intended, was paved through the cross. The Uncomfortable Competitor Here is where the message gets personal, and where many people quietly begin to disengage. Jesus, in Luke 16:13, made a statement that is simple in its language and staggering in its implication. He said that no servant can serve two masters. He did not say the competing master was Satan, or temptation in some abstract form. He named it specifically: you cannot serve God and money. Why money? Because money is uniquely positioned to do what few other things can. It promises security. It promises freedom. It promises happiness and control. It does not announce itself as a rival to God. It simply, quietly, gradually takes up more and more space in our thinking, our planning, our decision-making, and our sense of safety, until one day we realize that our trust has shifted from the Provider to the provision itself. Money is not evil in itself. The Bible does not say that. But it has an extraordinary capacity to become an idol, to set itself up as the thing we serve rather than the tool we steward. Colossians 3:5 is striking in this regard, listing covetousness alongside sexual immorality and impurity, and then adding something that stops readers in their tracks: covetousness, it says, is idolatry. It is the one item on that list given that specific label. That is not a small claim. That is the Bible saying that an unhealthy grip on money and possessions is functionally the same as bowing down to a false god. Abraham's Defining Moment Few stories in scripture illustrate this tension more vividly than the encounter recorded in Genesis 14. Abraham, returning from battle after rescuing his nephew Lot, found himself standing between two very different offers representing two very different kingdoms. On one side stood Melchizedek, the king of Salem and priest of the Most High God, who brought bread and wine in a covenant meal and blessed Abraham in the name of the God who possesses heaven and earth. On the other side stood the king of Sodom, representing an entirely different set of values, who made Abraham a straightforward offer: keep the goods, just give me the people. That offer deserves a long, slow look. Keep the stuff. Give me the people. It is the same offer the world makes today, just dressed in different language. Take the promotion, give me your priorities. Take the lifestyle, give me your family. Take the financial security, give me your time, your presence, your attention, your soul. Keep the goods. Just give me the people. Abraham's response was immediate and unambiguous. He lifted his hand to the Lord, the Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth, and declared that he would not take so much as a sandal strap from the king of Sodom. He refused to allow anyone or anything to take credit for what God had done in his life. He had already decided who his source was. Breaking the Grip So how does a person break the power that money and possessions can accumulate over a life? The answer is both simple and deeply counter-cultural: you give it away. Tithing, the practice of returning a tenth of what one receives to God, is not primarily a financial transaction. It is a declaration of lordship. It is the act of saying, with your hands and your wallet, not just your words, that God is the source of everything you have. Psalm 24:1 states that the earth is the Lord's and everything in it. When we tithe, we are agreeing with that truth in the most concrete way possible. The tenth is not a tax. It is not a church fundraising strategy. It is an act of worship that breaks the grip of covetousness and reorients the heart toward the One who gives every good gift. The Question That Remains Biblical dominion, the kind God intended from the beginning and Jesus restored through the cross, is not about accumulating power or wealth. It is about surrendering to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in every area of life, including the areas we most want to keep for ourselves. The question is not complicated. But it is searching. Who is the boss?

Centerpointe Apostolic Church