We’ve all been thinking a lot lately about the subject of prayer as we have studied The Lord’s Prayer together throughout October. I cannot think of a better use of our time than to press into Jesus’ instruction for how to experience prayer the way that God intended it to be experienced. That is essentially what Matthew 6:5-13 highlights for us. As the disciples saw Jesus praying, they saw somethi...  Read More

Our study of Ephesians has brought into focus both the beauty of the gospel and a powerful reminder of our identity in Christ. This study has reminded us that our identity is always the source of our actions. When we start working for our identity, rather than from our identity, things begin to misfire in our lives. When our identity is rooted in things other than Jesus Christ, it leads to selfish...  Read More

What are we grasping for?I remember as a child having a curiosity like no other. I was always curious about how things worked and why they worked the way they did. I always seemed to land in trouble for getting into things that I probably shouldn’t have been getting into. I remember once, when I was around 8, my family was eating dinner when I asked my dad, “what would happen if I put a paper clip...  Read More

“Dad? Dad….DAD?!?!” Those words came out of my 6 year old mouth many moons ago on a Sunday night while my dad and I were turning off the sanctuary lights and bumping the AC up on a hot summer night in South Mississippi. My dad was the pastor of a small country church and he was privileged with the task of being the Marine…the first one in and the first one out. He was the first one there to unlock...  Read More

Discipline is not a word that most people enjoy hearing. We live in a world that avoids discipline in all its forms at all cost. We have very little patience, we are usually never satisfied, we often do not delay gratification, and we frequently shirk responsibility. But, what we must understand is that discipline and discipleship are inherently linked. As disciples of Christ, we are called to loo...  Read More

With technology being so pervasive in our culture, there is an infinite amount of information available to us 24 hours a day right in the palm of our hands. This convenience can be an incredible asset to our workflow, our education, our entertainment and even our daily quiet time with the Lord and our corporate worship on the weekends. The ability to open up a Bible app and swipe over to the scrip...  Read More

Do you remember the good old days when you were a kid and you didn’t have a care in the world? Time seemed to go by so slow and the worst thing that you had to worry about was what you wanted to wear to school or what you wanted to do that day with friends. Some of us had more challenging childhoods, but the one thing that we had in common was playing games. Children love to play games like baseba...  Read More

Have you ever noticed that the areas where we experience the most joy are often the areas where we also experience the most pain? This is certainly true with the bigger things in life, like graduating a child out of the house, or going through the difficulty of a medical procedure that will enable greater mobility and freedom. This is also true of the smaller things in life, like the pain that com...  Read More

Hey Heartland Family! We cannot express how truly grateful we are for our new faith family here at Heartland. The scripture that comes to mind when we think about you comes from Colossians 1:3-4:  “We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints…” Thank you for loving us so...  Read More

I am going to lose 30 pounds. I am going to exercise more. I am going to eat out less and cook more at home. I am going to read the Bible in a year. I would imagine you’ve heard many of these resolutions already this year. I would even bet that you have one of these as your New Year’s resolution. You may have even already “changed” that resolution. None of these are bad things and I pray that you ...  Read More