It is never too late to turn away from sin and choose Jesus.

As people become more inclusive and seek to be less offensive, the topic of human sin has become somewhat unpopular. Yet the bible is decisively clear that sin is something we all struggle with, and if we do not choose to turn from sin and obey Jesus, we will regret it in every aspect of our lives.

Sin and spiritual forces of darkness manipulate us into choosing shallow immediacy over genuine happiness. They manipulate us into choosing bitterness over forgiveness, and selfishness over relationships. We can avoid talking about sin all we want, but tat won't resolve the reality that sin exists, and it will destroy our eternity with God if we do not confront it in our own lives and choose to follow Jesus over our own sinful paths.

Check out this message from Elder Gary Bell on the subject of sin as he wraps up our series on Thought Pollution.

God wants to flood your life with His presence.

God's presence brings hope, healing, provision, and fulfillment. Everything we need and everything we want becomes truly evident in God's presence. Being with God in relationship makes us whole. We run dry when we try to force fulfillment without God being our sole source of supply. God's presence is like a river that flows, carrying every source of goodness and joy within it. When the river of God's presence flows through our lives, we are completely satisfied by it in every way. But when we depart from God and distance ourselves from Him, everything that flows from the river of His presence flows around us, and we miss out on all He has for us. Jesus tells us in John 15 that he is the vine and we are the branches, and when we remain in Him, we will bear good fruit.

Your life will overflow with all of God's goodness the more you remain in Him. God wants you to be overflowing with His goodness. He doesn't desire us to be starving for hope and purpose and provision. God's heart is to satisfy you in a relationship with Him and to meet every need you have as a result of that relationship.

Check out this much-needed message from Pastor Rich as he continues our series on Thought Pollution!

The further you are from God, the more you will try to take God's place and control everything.

Some of us are willing to try anything to be noticed. To feel accepted and loved. We will conform to any scene or thought group and attempt to redefine ourselves if it makes us feel love and closeness with others. Many people do this with pain. We use our anxiety and our trauma to garner sympathy and attention in hopes that we will find a new identity that makes us feel important to others.

In the end, though, all of these attempts to redefine ourselves and take control of our situation leave us broken and unfulfilled, always lacking in what God really has in store for us. Because God is our Creator, He alone can define who we are and what is good for us. When we try to take control of where our identity, love, and goodness comes from, we end up making things so much worse. The closer we are to God, the more we understand ourselves. And the closer we are to God, the more we can enjoy real intimacy and love with others.

Check out this power-packed message from Pastor Joey as he continues our series on Thought Pollution!

A moment of reflection can save us from a lifetime of regret.

There's a popular lie out in the world today that insists we will find happiness if we follow our own hearts. In the movies, that sounds great, but in reality, that leads us nowhere. The popular moniker, "live your truth" is actually a big lie. We think it will bring us fulfillment and make us happy, but we just end up anxious, exhausted, and self-obsessed with no satisfaction in sight.

In the bible, king David gives us a great example of what this looks like. He was spending time where he shouldn't have, looking at a woman he had no business looking at, and found himself pursuing exactly what he wanted by taking the woman for himself. David's decisions resulted in murder, pain, and devastation, not happiness or fulfillment.

Check out this thought-provoking message from Pastor Bethany as she continues our series "Thought Pollution."

You might think you can handle carrying the opinions and values of society around you while also prioritizing God's purpose for your life, but in the end, God gets pushed aside, and life takes over.

It's a lie that we can live up to the world's expectations and still live close to the heart of God, following Jesus. There is no real relationship between the world's priorities and God's. The apostle Paul puts it this way, "What do righteousness and wickedness have in common? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? Come out from them and be separate says the Lord. Let us purify ourselves."

God created us to be perfectly content and fulfilled by being with Him constantly. We find ourselves bombarded with stress, anxiety, and hopeless expectations as soon as we try to compromise our proximity to God with proximity to the values of this world. It's not just busyness, it's thought pollution: We cannot live immersed in the world and continue to live close to the heart of God.

Check out this awesome message from Pastor Rich as he continues our series "Thought Pollution!"

As human beings in the 21st century, we are constantly bombarded with ideas, suggestions, political narratives, moral virtues, and entertainment. Our brains weren't designed to compound the amount of information we dive through every day. Yet here we are, trying to keep up with trends, ideas, and media. At some point, we're going to find our life empty and hollow, despite being bombarded with information. We are told by God to guard our hearts, for it is the wellspring of life.

We can try to void being too busy, but the danger is more than simply avoiding busyness: The danger lies in trying to keep all of the world's expectations and information in our heart while still keeping God the most important thing in our lives. Thought pollution is when our thoughts appear to be on the right track but are pressed by competing ideas and values of the world today.