John 8 begins with the crowd dragging a woman to Jesus.  She was caught in the act of adultery. Her guilt was self evident.....her shame was very visible....they caught her in the act and dragged her to Jesus but they didn't come with just her...they came with stones in hand... To them it was case closed! She is guilty!
They were so sure that she was about to die! So they threw her down at the feet of Jesus. They said, "We caught her...she's guilty! The law said to stone her, what do you say?"  The Bible simpy says that Jesus stooped down...He leaned down to her level... (I love the fact that although Jesus is
so above us, He still chooses to position Himself down on our level to make Himself available and within reach!)... He stooped down and He began to write in the sand. What did He write in the sand? We don't know. But when He finally broke the silence and spoke, He gave a simple reply..."Let he that is without sin cast the first stone!"
I can almost see this woman kneeling with head hung at the feet of Jesus as she held her breath expecting the stoning to begin...she knew she was guilty...she knew she couldn't deny it...she had no defense...she had no hope...so, she knelt there at the feet of Jesus in despair thinking her life was over.
But friend,  no matter what shape you are in when you come, there is always hope at the feet of Jesus! That poor old devil. If his desire was to kill her, he should have never thrown her at the feet of Jesus! She should have been brought somewhere else. Anywhere else. But not at the feet of Jesus! You see, things change at the feet of Jesus! Hope lives in his presence!
She held her breath expecting stones to come, but they never did. One by one, stones fell to the ground until Jesus broke the silence. "Woman, where are your accusers?  Where is the death that followed you here? Where are the crowd sneers? Where is that hopelessness and despair that was surrounding you?" Slowly, she lifts her head. She saw no one, but her and Jesus...
You see problems have a way of vanishing at the feet of Jesus! Troubles can't stay. Depression must flee. Condemnation must walk away at the feet of Jesus!
After a good altar experience, there at His feet, troubles and worries and heartaches and despair, disappear! Weights and stones fall to the ground and we walk away just like this woman in this story, without fear and without condemnation, all because of time spent at His feet.
Ladies and gentlemen, when you feel the weight of the world on you and you're surrounded with more than you can handle, do yourself a favor and carry it all to an altar and spend some time at His feet. Things change at the feet of Jesus!

What is unity? Unity is the opposite of division. Anything that causes division is not unity. Unity is not uniformity. Unity is not everyone being just like me.
I love the teaching in Ephesians 4:3. Ephesians 4:3- (new international version)....."Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace".
The reason why Paul tells the Ephesian church to make an effort is because unity isn't easy. It requires effort. It requires being a peacemaker. It requires lots of love. It requires lots of patience. It's like a marriage. It requires work but if you will put in the effort, then you can enjoy the rewards!
Unity  is understanding that we will never all agree on everything. That we won't always see eye to eye. You may not like how this is done or how that is being run, but unity understands that what we have in common is worth much more and is more valuable than what little separates us.
Why was God so concerned about unity? Not only because of what we can get done in unity, but I believe God loves unity because Satan hates it so much!
Satan works day and night trying to highlight our differences and cause divisions in the body of Christ. It's the desire of satan to divide and conquer but it's the will of God that we stay united.
I love Psalms 133:1-"Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!"
God loves unity...
God honors unity...
He is attracted to unity...
And He chooses to work only where there is unity...
Matthew 18:19-Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.
The church began when they became united....Acts 2:1-"And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place."
....and then and only then did God birth the church and fill it with His spirit.
There are amazing things that can happen when God's people get in unity...
let me stop here and tell us that in the word of God, there's only two ways to have perfect unity. First is persecution. The second is prayer. I don't know about you, but I had rather pray!
O God, help me to always fight for unity, because unity is worth the fight!
Listen, if Jesus only works where there is unity and if I needed God to move in my life and in my family's life, then I'd strive and work for my family's sake to achieve unity! Unity at any cost is a cheap price to pay!
The best way to keep unity is to stay united with Jesus!
But how do we get in unity with Him?
Hebrews 11:6-But without faith it is impossible to please Him: for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.
First of all, we must believe in Him. But what does the Bible say that this kind of belief looks like? It would be very audacious of me to assume I could put my own definition on what I think believe means. I want to know what the scripture has to say  about that....in this verse, the word says, we must believe that He is AND...(there's more to this definition)...and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.  According to the Bible, a believer is one, who not only believes, but seeks after and pursues Christ.
It's very easy to be in unity with others after I've been in fellowship with Him.
You see, one of the rewards
of diligently seeking Him is that I must repent and lay aside my flesh and my disgruntled spirit and cleanse my heart to approach Him. And when that happens, I no longer care about the tiny divisions Satan had me focused on, but my mind is saturated with kingdom business and eternity.
So I encourage everyone, if you haven't already began that pursuit, that you choose right now to diligently begin your pursuit of Christ.
If you will diligently seek Him.....The rewards are out of this world!

God has designed life to operate in seasons and what God wants to do in that season will come only once!
Th blessings that God has for this season will be only for this season!
In the scripture, Jesus actually rebuked some cause they didn’t know the season... they missed their time.... God prepared and God sent them their answer but they didn’t show up...
Listen... 
Satan will provide you with a constant flow of very good sounding excuses for missing....
Because Satan understands seasons sometimes better than we do... so he sends distractions to hinder us from receiving what God has prepared for us!
But whatever you have to do....
Don’t let this moment pass you by!!!
Don’t be distracted in your season!
When Jesus came walking on the water the disciples almost missed it! Because they didn’t even recognize Jesus walking on the water....
Do you know why the disciples in that boat...and in that storm...why and when they saw Jesus thought He was a spirit? Do you know why they didn’t recognize Him?
It’s because they didn’t expect Him to show up!
When you have no expectations... you won’t even recognize God when He does come to you....
Do you know how the father recognized his prodigal son from afar off? He was looking for him!
But when Jesus came walking on the water... the disciples didn’t recognize Him...
They almost missed their moment because of a lack of expectation and because they had allowed the storm to distract the. 
Distractions can delay or even deny us from receiving what God had for us.
As a pastor, nothing is more frustrating than to pray and seek and get a word from God that warns people about what’s coming and to preach it and then have those who listened fall in the hole that you just warned them about. 
But it’s not that they didn’t listen to the word from God, they just allowed satan to distract them so much that they fell into the trap laid out before them. But I don’t judge those people because I myself have been guilty of the same fault. I like the disciples didn’t recognize what God was doing because the enemy had arrested my attention so thoroughly that I almost missed the Lord working a miracle in my season.
The only hope we have is when we find ourselves falling into and being consumed by the distractions of our storm… we must cry out like the disciples…. only their cry saved them! Because He would have passed them by but He heard their cry.... when they cried out to God... God moved with compassion and saved them....
But had they done nothing... they would have missed their moment and Jesus would have passed them by....
Listen... there are seasons and times and divine moments that we must respond in or we miss out.... 
Let me ask you some questions.....do you believe God loves you and cares about you? Don’t you know He sees what your going through? Don’t you believe God is still the provider?
When Israel was in the wilderness....every morning...manna fell... but they had to get up and go out and gather it, to meet their need. If they slept in and missed the morning, they would miss the answer to their need!
What if the service you chose to miss is the service....the season.... the moment of your deliverance....the appointed time for your answer? And later on... your still praying and questioning, “God why don’t you move on this problem... why won’t you met this need?”
And God is thinking... I sent it! But you stayed home...slept in and missed the manna!
Hear me! Don’t let the devil steal your blessings....beware of distractions …. be faithful!
#The faithful never leave the field hungry! 
Because they were faithful to go to the field!

Before his notorious act of betrayal the name Judas was a respected if not revered name. It was a common name meaning “celebrated” or “lauded,” that no parent would hesitate to call their child. Yet after selling out the innocent blood of the Son of God for thirty pieces of silver and identifying Him to the authorities with a kiss on the cheek, few parents today have dared to risk identifying their sons with a man like Judas Iscariot.
The question is what was the real Achilles heel of Judas? Was it greed as most believe? I personally don’t think so. The spirit of greed would never have allowed Judas to throw his 30 pieces of silver down and walk away.
I believe the Achilles heel of Judas was revealed when Mary broke the alabaster box of precious costly ointment and poured it upon Jesus. Judas was immediately angry at the act and spoke up and said, this should have been sold and given to the poor.
This is so amazingly shocking and confusing to me.
I mean, even after all that Jesus had done… He healed and filled and fed and blessed and delivered and even raised the dead. But even after all that Jesus had done, for Judas it still wasn’t enough!
Jesus should have done more! The Bible said that Judas was a thief! But maybe it wasn’t money that he was after but the time and attention of Jesus!
In his mind, Jesus should have involved him in this decision of what to do with the alabaster box.
Judas didn’t really care about the poor, he just wanted all of Jesus time to be focused on him and he wanted his voice heard!
This single act I believe for Judas was the straw that broke the camels back. To Judas this simple act was enough to prove to him that Jesus didn’t value his opinion.
His feelings were so hurt, he gladly sold Jesus out! After all, to him he obviously no longer fit into Jesus plans anyway…
Sadly, The spirit of Judas didn’t die with Judas. Even today pastors all over the world weep and worry about disgruntled souls, whom they have invested in and yet these souls seem to easily just walk away because in their mind the pastor hasn’t done enough. He hasn’t used me enough. He hasn’t honored me enough. He hasn’t promoted me enough. Equipped me enough. Fed me enough. Spent enough time with me or been a good enough friend. He hasn’t provided enough resources. He hasn’t done enough for our kids. He hasn’t done enough to pacify our elders…. On and on the excuses go.
And no matter how much the pastor has done, none of that will be remembered for those who have been infected with the spirit of Judas.
Pastor friend, be encouraged! When people walk away, it really wasn’t you!
There’s nothing more you could have done.
Because, nothing will ever be enough to satisfy Judas.
The good news is that though we may all weep and worry when our Judas’s walk away, Jesus still built the church with those who remained. God will never allow us to lose what we need to fulfill His purpose in our lives.