Cultivate NJ Cultivate Church

The Good News is that the scriptures ARE disturbing… They're wild and terrifying at times, confusing and confounding at other times… Jesus himself, the Word of God, confounded and disoriented almost everyone he met. Let us receive disturbing scriptures, letting them disturb us in our violence and abuse, delivering us from our evil.

In Christ, we are delivered from the devastating effects of Sin’s work in and through us. Do you need rescue from the things you’ve wrought on yourself and others? God has not abandoned you, nor had he condemned you. But he has put Sin to death and given life to those who see no way out. Set your mind on the Spirit today and allow him to lead you to the security of forgiveness, life and peace that are yours because of your adoption as God’s children.

We have been joined to God in Christ to bear the fruit of the Kingdom and to become who God has always envisioned us to be. Rules and regulations cannot do the work of the Spirit. So, look upon each other, your neighbor, your kids, your parents, yourself with New Creation eyes today and see the work that’s already begun. Thanks be to God! We have been set free from the need to control so that we can become servants of the Spirit.

At our baptism, we step into New Creation. We're not just saved for a future reality, but we’re empowered today to live from our New Story. We're no longer slaves to the destructive will of Sin but we’re authorized agents of the Risen Jesus, bringing the justice and rectification of God’s beautiful kingdom right into the old. We don't just get saved but we get to live out and declare a new story.

Through Jesus’ faithfulness, God brings the reign of His grace right into the most broken parts of our stories. He rescues us from the tyrants called Sin and Death that defile God’s good world and cause us to turn on each other. In Jesus, God writes a new story over us: One of vindication and justice. Be assured, nothing in your story is wasted. Where Sin seeks to enslave you unto Death, God’s power and presence are ready to liberate you unto life.

In Christ we are given a new operating system for navigating the inevitable conflicts and struggles we face. No longer are we left to endure division alone or navigate it with the same old methods. Because today we stand in the secure grace of knowing that God has poured the love we need into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. This Holy Spirit leads us to face and befriend conflict as the ground on which to encounter God’s reconciling power to save.