The Valley Church

03/30/2026

Sloth is not simply laziness. It is spiritual sluggishness, a reluctance to do what we should as redeemed and loved children of God. Sloth drags its feet in worship, grows heavy with worldly preoccupations, gets too comfortable to care, and becomes content to stop growing.

Sloth often looks like delay. Later. Eventually. Not right now. It can be the slow drift away from prayer, the quiet neglect of Scripture, the numbing habit of distraction, or the resistance to serving because it feels costly. Sloth can even hide behind busyness. Sometimes we stay busy so we do not have to be honest. But underneath, sloth is a resistance to love because love requires movement, attention, and sacrifice.

Christ is the opposite of sloth. He gave all the way to humiliation and death. He did not delay obedience. He did not protect comfort. He moved toward need. Lent is a gift because it helps us see where we have fallen asleep and invites us back into joyful obedience. It calls us to wake up, stay sober minded, and live with Spirit given diligence, not to earn salvation, but because we are already loved.

This week, choose one small act of faithfulness you have been postponing. Do it as worship. Ask God to make your heart willing.

“For you are all children[a] of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.”
1 Thessalonians 5:5-6 (ESV)

03/29/2026

03/23/2026

Wrath boils fast. While the fruit of the Spirit grows slowly, wrath of the flesh erupts at record speed. What makes it so dangerous is not the intensity alone, but its rash and self seeking nature.

Wrath is vengeful and reckless. It must get even. It refuses to wait for Christ’s sure justice, calling it inadequate and too slow, and it empties itself in fits of passion. Wrath can show up in obvious explosions, but it can also show up as simmering hostility, sharp words, sarcasm, bitterness, and silent punishment. Sometimes wrath is not loud, it is cold. It withdraws affection. It replays offenses. It keeps score. And it often feels justified, which makes it easy to excuse.

Lent invites us to slow down, to listen, and to let God search the places where anger has taken over. The call is not to pretend we never feel anger. There is righteous anger. But wrath is different. Wrath is self centered anger that wants revenge and control. It refuses meekness. It refuses patience. It refuses the idea that God can handle what we cannot.

This week, ask the Lord for grace to pause before you speak, to be quick to listen, and to receive His Word with humility. Ask Him to replace wrath with wisdom, and reactivity with repentance.

“Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.” James 1:19-21 (ESV)

03/19/2026

Ever driven by and wondered “what’s inside”?

03/16/2026

Greed piles up more than it needs and often does so at the expense of others. Greed is the
opposite of the way of the cross, whispering, I will have too much, therefore you will have nothing. It makes room for the world and slowly pushes Christ out the door.

Sometimes greed looks like hoarding money or possessions. But greed can also be subtler. It can look like hoarding time, guarding comfort, refusing to be interrupted, or resenting generosity.

Greed asks, “What can I keep?” Grace asks, "What can I give?" Greed clings. Grace releases. Greed looks at everything as if it’s scarce. It cannot possibly trust God to provide. Greed keeps our hands closed and our hearts anxious.

Lent helps us practice a different posture. We can loosen our grip. We can examine our habits. We ask whether our spending, saving, and giving are acts of worship or acts of fear. Jesus does not call us into reckless giving. He calls us into trustful giving. He invites us to treasure Him above everything and to see possessions as tools for love, not trophies for security. Christ can free greedy hearts and form generosity in us, the kind that trusts we already have everything we need in Him.

This week, ask: Where am I tempted to hoard? What am I afraid to lose? How might generosity be a form of repentance in my life?

And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have
prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” Luke 12:16-21 (ESV)

03/09/2026

Gluttony is not only about food. It is a heart that tries to feast on God’s gifts while ignoring God Himself. Instead of living from fullness in Christ, gluttony gorges out of emptiness, chasing more and more. It is rarely measured, often impulsive, and blind to consequences.

Gluttony can show up at the table, but it can also sneak into spending, entertainment,
accomplishments, leisure, and the need for approval. It is not just about quantity. It is about control and comfort. Gluttony says, I will soothe, satisfy, and steady myself with created things.

Lent is a gift because it helps us notice what we reach for when we are tired, stressed, lonely, or bored. Fasting does not earn God’s favor, it reveals where we look for comfort. It exposes the hunger beneath the hunger. And then it points us back to Christ, who offers Himself as the true bread.

Gluttony promises satisfaction and delivers enslavement. Only Christ can restore hunger
and reorder love. Only Christ can teach us to ask, Is this enough?

This week, consider one small practice of restraint, not as punishment, but as a prayer. May your heart’s refrain be, “Lord, I want You more than this.”

“One who is full loathes honey, but to one who is hungry everything bitter is sweet.”Proverbs 27:7 (ESV)

02/24/2026

Ladies of Cincinnati, we have a night of worship just for you. Join us this Friday at 7pm for an evening of song, testimony, and prayer as sisterhood is strengthened and our Lord is exalted.

All are invited!

02/23/2026

Envy grows where pride already lives. It refuses the portion God has given and insists that it is not enough. Envy turns our gaze outward with jealousy, making us feel like victims who are owed more.

It is a sin of comparison that slowly trains the heart to believe God is generous to everyone else and stingy with me.

Envy rarely stays private. It reshapes how we interpret people. Their success feels like a threat. Their joy feels like an insult. Envy can make us cold, critical, or quietly resentful, even toward people we love. And it robs us of the ability to receive today as a gift.

Wherever envy is found gratitude will surely be absent. Lent invites us to bring envy into the light. We are not to pretend we don’t feel it but to confess and let Christ heal it. Jesus is the Great Physician who can cut away envy and make us whole, teaching us contentment that is rooted in Him, not in comparison. The goal is not to force ourselves into false positivity but to trust the Father’s wisdom. He knows what we need and when we need it. He knows how to form Christ in us through what we have and what we do not yet have.

This week, pray honest prayers when envy flares. Lord, I am tempted to compare. Help me bless what You have done for others. Help me trust what You are doing for me.

“What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.”- James 4:1-3 (ESV)

02/18/2026

Pride is not just confidence, it is a defiance of the honor and reverence God is due. Pride does not always shout. Often, it whispers. Sometimes, it shows up as self-reliance that never asks for help, spiritual arrogance that resists correction, or a quiet refusal to need grace. Pride says “I will determine what is true, what is right, and what I deserve.” And once pride takes root, it spreads into everything, shaping how we want, take, withhold, and react when our desires are not met.

Pride removes Christ from the throne of our hearts and instead crowns itself. Self exaltation will seep through every area of our lives. It can even dress itself up as maturity or strength, but it always leaves us smaller, harder, and more isolated. Pride shrinks God and inflates us.

Lent invites us to recognize where we quietly dethrone Jesus. It’s a space to ask Him to drain us of every drop of self glory so we can live for His glory alone. Repentance can restore the proper order, God is God, and
we are grateful recipients of mercy.

This week, ask the Lord to show you where pride hides in plain sight. Where do I feel better than others? Where do I avoid confession? Where do I defend myself instead of surrendering? Jesus meets the humble, not to crush them, but to lift them up.

“For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.” Romans 1:21-23 (ESV)

02/17/2026

Lent is a season to step into the wilderness with Jesus. It’s a time to slow down, listen, and let God reveal what is really going on in our hearts. The goal is not just self-improvement. It is honest self-reflection that helps us see our need for Christ and love Him more deeply.

Over this Lent season, we are taking time to examine the seven deadly sins not as a checklist for shame, but as a mirror for repentance and renewal. These sins are not random bad habits. They are heart level distortions that quietly shape how we think, react, speak, and feel. Lent gives us a gracious pause to ask hard questions.

Where am I resisting God? Where am I ignoring what Jesus wants to heal? Where am I living for myself instead of for His glory?

As we walk through each sin, our prayer is simple. That the Lord would expose what is hidden, forgive what is confessed, and replace what is twisted with what is true. Ultimately, we pray that He teaches us to hunger for Him more than anything else.

“For the Lord your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He knows you’re going through this great wilderness. These forty years the Lord your God has been with you. You have lacked nothing.”’ Deuteronomy 2:7 (ESV)