http://www.catalystchurch.life/

Catalystchurch, 714 S Hillcrest Drive, Colfax, WA (2026)

05/19/2026

Song of Solomon 2:15 says: “Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that are ruining the vineyards, while our vineyards are in blossom.”
The picture is simple but sharp. It’s not bears or lions tearing through the vineyard. It’s foxes. Small, quick, and easy to dismiss. The damage they do is gradual. You don’t notice it in a day. But over a season, the fruit is gone.
The concern here isn’t dramatic failure. It’s quiet erosion.
That’s how life works too. What ruins us most often isn’t one big blowout. It’s the small habits, small compromises, and small patterns we excuse because they don’t seem urgent. The extra 20 minutes scrolling instead of sleeping. The sarcastic comment you keep making to your spouse. The little bit of envy you scroll past but never address. The show you watch that leaves residue on your heart.
None of it feels serious enough to deal with today. So we leave it alone. And over time, it starts to shape the whole vineyard.
The live love of God is protective, not passive.
Notice the verse says the vineyards are in blossom. This is when everything is vulnerable and full of promise. Budding relationships, new spiritual hunger, fresh purpose, growing families. That’s exactly when the little foxes show up.
The live love of God doesn’t just forgive the big sins. It cares enough to warn you about the small ones too. Why? Because He’s not after perfectionism. He’s after your fruit. He wants your life to produce love, joy, peace, and all the things you were made for. And He knows that’s exactly what those little compromises choke out first.
This isn’t about living in fear of messing up. It’s about living awake. The live love of God invites you to partner with Him in tending your vineyard. He says “Catch the foxes for us.” Not just for you. For us. Because He’s in this with you. He doesn’t point out the foxes to shame you. He points them out because He wants to keep what’s blossoming in you from being ruined. So what do you do with the little foxes? Name them. You can’t catch what you won’t admit is there. What’s one “small” thing you’ve been excusing that keeps showing up? Call it what it is.
Deal with them early. Foxes are hardest to catch once they’ve dug in. Don’t wait until the fruit is gone to take your patterns seriously. The live love of God gives you grace to address it now, not condemnation for waiting too long.
Guard what’s blossoming. What new thing is God growing in you right now? Your marriage, your prayer life, your purpose, your peace? That’s what the foxes target. Be intentional about protecting it, not because you’re paranoid, but because you’re invested.
Big collapses are usually the result of ignored little foxes. But the live love of God is vigilant on your behalf. He sees what’s blossoming in you and He wants to protect it with you.
Live Love! Let Love Make it a Great Life!!!!
Shane

05/18/2026

The church in Ephesus was doing a lot right on the outside.
Jesus commends them for their hard work, their endurance under pressure, and their commitment to truth. They didn’t tolerate false teaching. They tested people who claimed to be apostles. They kept showing up and serving. By every visible measure, they looked like a healthy, faithful church.
Yet Jesus points to one deeper issue that was eroding everything else: “You have abandoned the love you had at first” - Revelation 2:4.
Their devotion had cooled, even while their activity continued.
That’s what makes this passage unsettling. It exposes a trap we all fall into: you can stay busy with spiritual things and still lose closeness with God. You can serve, teach, give, and keep the routine without your heart actually being in it. Outward consistency does not always mean inward affection.
What happens is subtle. The initial fire of being loved and forgiven gets replaced with duty. You start living for God’s approval instead of resting in His love. And when love turns to obligation, even good work becomes dry.
The live love of God is what pulls us out of that drift.
The live love of God isn’t a memory of what He did at your conversion. It’s active, present, and personal right now. It’s the love that pursued you when you weren’t earning it, and it’s the love that pursues you when you start drifting back into performance.
Jesus doesn’t tell Ephesus to try harder first. He tells them to remember—remember the height from which you’ve fallen, and return to the love you had at first. The solution isn’t more activity to earn closeness. The solution is to let the live love of God reset your heart, and let that love fuel the activity.
When you know you’re loved before you do anything, your work changes. It’s no longer to get God’s attention. It’s because you already have it. Service becomes response, not a bid for approval.
So the question isn’t “Are you doing Christian things?” The question is “Are you still being held by the live love of God while you do them?”
If your heart feels cold even while your calendar stays full, don’t double down on activity. Go back to the love. Remember what it felt like to be forgiven. Let Him rekindle it. And surrender your life to him following love.
Live Love! Let Love Make it a Great Life!!!!
Shane

05/15/2026

The Real-Life Tension
Most people live like God’s love is on a points system.
Perform well, and maybe He’ll love you. Mess up, and you’ll feel that distance creep in again. So you try harder, hide longer, and end up exhausted. That’s the lie of religion.
The lie sounds reasonable: “If I get it together, God will be pleased with me.” But living that way leaves you constantly wondering if today’s your last good day before you lose His favor.
Romans 5:8 says it plainly: “God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Notice the timing. He didn’t wait for you to clean up. He didn’t check your track record. He saw you at your worst—angry, selfish, broken—and said, “That one. I’ll go to the cross for them.”
You’re made in God’s image. That means you have value before you ever do a single thing right. The cross proves it. The cross is God’s answer to every doubt: “You’re worth My Son.”
John 15:13 puts a face on it: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” Jesus doesn’t just call you forgiven. He calls you friend. And He proved it with blood.
This is the live love of God—not a memory of something He did 2,000 years ago, but a present, active love that meets you right where you are. It’s alive now. It’s working now. It’s not waiting for the future, fixed-up version of you.
The Jesus Way
Paul says in Galatians 2:20, “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”
So when I look at you, I’m not looking at your mess first. I’m looking at someone Jesus died for.
Love isn’t just a feeling I work up for you. Love is a cross He carried for you. And because He lives in me, I get to carry that same love to you. Not fake niceness. Not tolerance. Real, sacrificial, “I see you and I’m not walking away” love.
That’s what it means to take up your cross. It means you stop living for your own reputation and start living love. Today.
It means you stop believing the lie that you’re too far gone. His love already went farther. Let the live love of God make it a great life, not because everything is perfect, but because you’re held by Him. Will you believe Jesus loves you today—right now, in this mess—not just the future, cleaned-up version of you? Tell one person in your life: “Jesus loves you. No strings. No conditions. Period.” Say it and watch what happens when truth lands on someone who’s been earning their worth.
Because here’s the truth you can stand on:
You’re not a failure. You’re forgiven.
You’re not alone. You’re pursued.
You’re not disqualified. You’re died for
That’s how much He loves you.
Live Love! Let Love Make it a Great Life!!!!
Shane

05/14/2026

In Christ Jesus, you are a child of God through faith.
That one truth reorders how you understand identity. The things that usually define people — race, social status, gender, background, reputation — don’t get to be your primary label anymore. Those are secondary. Your primary identity is found in your relationship with Christ.
Think of it like adoption. When a child is adopted, they don’t get partial rights. They receive the full legal standing of a son or daughter in that family. The same is true spiritually. Through Christ, you’re not treated as a guest or a servant in God’s house. You’re brought in as a child, with all the rights and privileges that come with it.
And God doesn’t leave it as just a legal status. The Holy Spirit lives in you. His presence is proof that you belong to Him, and it’s also confirmation of your status. Romans 8:16 says the Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.
Because you are a child, you’re also an heir. Heirs don’t earn their inheritance by performance. They receive it because of relationship. In Christ, you share in His inheritance — His righteousness, His life, His future glory.
This is the live love of God at work.
It’s not a love that’s passive or locked in the past. It’s active and present. It’s the love that adopts you, seals you with the Spirit, and keeps you as a child of God today. It doesn’t wait for you to be perfect. It welcomes you as you are and makes you new.
So the barriers that used to define you don’t have the final word. Your past doesn’t have the final word. Christ does.
You are loved, adopted, sealed, and made an heir — not because of what you’ve done, but because of who He is and the live love of God that holds you now.
Live Love! Let Love Make it a Great Life!!!!
Shane

05/13/2026

The God Kind of Love
1 John 4:8
“The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” NASB
We throw the word “love” around until it means nothing.
Romantic love. Self-love. Love for pizza. Love for vibes. We’ve made it a feeling that comes and goes with your mood, your circumstances, your convenience.
But the God kind of love isn’t a feeling first. It’s a Person. God is love. Not “God has love.” Not “God feels love.” He is love. His nature defines the word.
And His love doesn’t look like ours. Unless we are lined up with his word.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8 NASB — “Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.
Notice what’s missing? “Love is conditional.” “Love is transactional.” “Love is earned.” That’s human love. The God kind of love gives before you’re worthy.
Romans 5:8 NASB — “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
He loved you when you were running. He loved you when you were numb. He loved you when you had nothing to offer. That’s agape love. Sacrificial. Unearned. Unrelenting. It doesn’t love you for what you do. It loves you to make you what you can’t become on your own.
If you don’t know the God kind of love, you’ll keep chasing counterfeits.
You’ll settle for love that keeps score. Love that gets cold when you mess up. Love that says “I’ll stay if you stay perfect.” That’s not love. That’s leverage.
And if you don’t receive God’s love, you can’t give it. 1 John 4:19 NASB — “We love, because He first loved us.” You can’t pour out what you haven’t let Him pour in.
A lot of us are trying to love our spouse, kids, enemies, and ourselves from an empty tank. Then we burn out, get bitter, and call it “love is hard.” No — human love without God is hard. The God kind of love is supernatural. John 15:12 NASB — “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.”
I no longer live but Christ lives in me. Galatians 2:20 NASB. His love in you is the only love that can love the unlovable, forgive the unforgivable, and stay when it’s inconvenient. What kind of love are you living out of right now?
Is it conditional? “I’ll love you if you act right.”
Is it exhausted? “I’m done trying.”
Is it self-focused? “What about me?”
Or is it Christ in you, loving through you even when it costs?
Be honest. You can’t fake the God kind of love for long. It shows up in how you respond when you’re tired, offended, and ignored.
Let Him love you, then love through you today.
Sit with 1 John 3:1 NASB — “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God.” You are loved. Not because you earned it. Because He chose it.
Repent of substitutes: Where have you let performance, approval, or romance replace His love? Bring it to Him.
Then give it away. Pick one hard person today. Ask, “How would Jesus love them right now?” Then do that. No strings. No payback.
Stay in Him: John 15:9 NASB — “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love.” You don’t manufacture this love. You abide in the One who is love.
The world doesn’t need more advice on love. It needs to see it.
The God kind of love doesn’t quit. Doesn’t keep score. Doesn’t give up on people. It went to a cross for you. And it’s still pursuing you today.
Live Love! Let Love Make it a Great Life!!!!
Shane

05/12/2026

Isaiah 29:13
“Then the Lord said, ‘Because this people draw near with their words and honor Me with their lip service, But they remove their hearts far from Me, and their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote.’” NASB
God isn’t impressed by performance.
Here’s what’s happening in Isaiah 29:13. The people were doing all the right religious things. They were showing up. Saying the right words. Singing the songs. Using the right language about God. Outwardly, it looked like devotion.
But God says, “You’re close with your mouth and far with your heart.”
The gap is brutal. Lip service. Tradition learned by rote. Words without weight. Prayers without presence. Worship without wonder. You can sound holy and be hollow. You can talk about God and be distant from Him.
Jesus quoted this exact verse in Matthew 15:8-9 NASB and Mark 7:6-7 NASB when He called out the Pharisees. They had the doctrine down. The expressions down. But their hearts were somewhere else — on rules, reputation, control.
It’s possible to speak rightly about God and still not know Him. Words can become a substitute for reality if you’re not paying attention. You can memorize the lines and miss the relationship.
This is self deception at its quietest.
You think you’re fine because you said the prayer. You think you’re close because you use Christian language. You think you’re worshiping because you sang the chorus. But God looks at the heart. 1 Samuel 16:7 NASB.
Habit isn’t the problem. Habits are good. The problem is when habit replaces hunger. When “I always pray before bed” becomes “I always say words before bed.” When worship becomes background noise for your life instead of the center of it.
Romans 12:1 NASB says “present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice… which is your spiritual service of worship.” True worship costs you something. It engages your heart, your will, your obedience. Lip service costs you nothing.
I no longer live but Christ lives in me. Galatians 2:20 NASB. If Christ lives in you, He didn’t come for your rehearsed lines. He came for your heart. Jeremiah 24:7 NASB — “I will give them a heart to know Me, for I am the Lord; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart.” Where are you giving God your words but withholding your heart?
Is prayer a routine you rush through to check the box?
Is worship a performance you do for others to see?
Is your Bible reading just reading, with no expectation to meet Him?
Are you saying “Lord, Lord” but not doing what He says? Matthew 7:21 NASB
Be honest. It’s easier to adjust your language than to surrender your heart. But only one of those changes you.
Close the gap today. Don’t let words substitute for reality.
Pause before you speak: Before you pray or worship, say, “God, I don’t want to just say this. I want to mean this.”
Check your heart Psalm 139:23-24 NASB — “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts.” Let Him expose where you’re distant.
Align action with words: If you say He’s Lord, obey Him today in one specific thing you’ve been avoiding. James 1:22 NASB.
Come back: Hosea 14:1 NASB — “Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God.” Distance isn’t final. You can draw near again. James 4:8 NASB — “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.”
God doesn’t want your script. He wants your surrender.
Are you paying attention to your heart, or are you just managing your words?
Live Love! Let Love Make it a Great Life!!!!
Shane

05/11/2026

Luke 2:19
“But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” NSAB
Mary had just given birth in a stable. Shepherds showed up reeking of sheep, out of breath, talking about angels and glory and a Savior. Luke 2:17-18 NASB.
She didn’t have a theology degree. She didn’t have a 5-year plan. She couldn’t fully understand what her Son’s life would mean. She didn’t know about the cross yet. She didn’t know about the resurrection. She didn’t know how “Son of God” would look in a 12-year-old arguing with rabbis, or a 30-year-old turning water to wine, or a 33-year-old hanging on wood.
But she didn’t dismiss it because she didn’t understand it.
“Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.”
The word “treasured” means to keep, to guard, to hold onto like it’s valuable. The word “pondered” means to throw together, to sift, to turn it over and over in your mind. She didn’t rush past it. She didn’t post it and move on. She sat with it. Quietly. Deeply. Like a mother.
That’s what faith often looks like before you get clarity. You carry what you can’t explain. You hold the promise even when the path is blurry. You love through the uncertainty. We live in a world that wants answers now. If it doesn’t make sense, we drop it. If God doesn’t explain Himself in 30 seconds, we assume He’s silent or absent.
But Mary shows us another way. She didn’t need to decode the mystery to adore the Messiah. She didn’t need to see the whole picture to worship the One in her arms.
Not every moment in your life needs an explanation to be obeyed. Not every “why” gets answered before the next step. Sometimes God gives you a moment, not a manual. And He’s asking you to treasure it, not solve it.
I no longer live but Christ lives in me. Galatians 2:20 NASB. That means even when you don’t understand what He’s doing, you know Who is with you. You don’t need the full script to trust the Director.
Psalm 131:2 NASB — “I have calmed and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with his mother, my soul is like a weaned child within me.” Quiet trust in the middle of not knowing. That’s maturity.
What are you trying to rush God to explain right now?
A prayer that’s been unanswered for years?
A door that slammed shut?
A calling that feels too big and too unclear?
A season of waiting that feels wasted?
Are you holding it before Him, treasuring it, pondering it… or are you throwing it away because it doesn’t make sense yet?
Be a Mary today.
Stop rushing: Take 5 minutes. No phone. No noise. Ask God, “What moment have You given me that I’m trying to rush past?”
Treasure it: Write it down. Journal it. Pray it back to Him. “Lord, I don’t fully get this, but I’m not letting it go.”
Ponder it: Turn it over in your heart. What might He be teaching you? What’s He revealing about Himself? What’s He asking of you right now?
Love through it: Obey what you do know, while you wait for clarity on what you don’t. Luke 1:38 NASB — “Behold, the bondslave of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word.”
You don’t need all the answers to stay faithful. You just need to keep treasuring Him.
Mary didn’t know the end of the story. But she knew the One who was the story. And that was enough to hold her through the uncertainty.
Happy Mother’s Day!!
Live Love! Let Love Make it a Great Life!!!!
Shane

05/08/2026

In James 1:22
He isn’t calling out atheists here. He’s talking to church people. Bible people. You people.
He points out a quiet, respectable form of self-deception. You can sit in church. Take notes. Nod. Highlight the verse. Post the quote. Agree with the sermon. Cry during worship. Appreciate the truth… and still not be shaped by it.
Hearing can give you the feeling of progress without the reality of change. It’s spiritual dopamine. You mistake revelation for transformation. You confuse conviction for obedience. You walk out thinking, “Wow, that was good,” but walk into Monday unchanged.
James calls it delusion. Self-deception. Because the most dangerous lie is the one you tell yourself: “I’m growing because I know more.”
But knowledge isn’t maturity. Application is. Jesus said it in Matthew 7:24-27 NASB — the wise man and the foolish man both heard His words. Only one acted on them. Same storm hit both houses. Only one stood.
The gap between knowing and doing is where growth stalls. It’s where faith gets fat but fruitless. It’s where we become spiritual collectors, not disciples. We stack up truth like trophies we never use.
And it’s not always rejection of truth that slows us down. Most of us aren’t saying “I don’t believe that.” We’re saying “I’ll get to that.” We delay obedience. We procrastinate repentance. We bookmark the conviction for later.
But delayed obedience is disobedience. James 4:17 NASB — “Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.”
You can’t audit a sermon and skip the assignment. You don’t get credit for agreeing with God. Demons believe and shudder. James 2:19 NASB. Agreement isn’t alignment.
The enemy loves a well-fed, well-taught, inactive Christian. Because a hearer-only Christian is a harmless Christian. You know the Word but it doesn’t know you. You quote verses but they don’t own you. You’ve got revelation without revolution.
I no longer live but Christ lives in me. Galatians 2:20 NASB. If Christ lives in you, He didn’t come to inform you. He came to transform you. His Word isn’t meant to be admired. It’s meant to be obeyed. John 14:15 NASB — “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.”
The Word is a mirror. James 1:23-24 NASB. Mirrors aren’t for staring. They’re for changing. You don’t walk away from a mirror with spinach in your teeth saying “good to know.” You deal with it.
God’s truth shows you what needs to change. Doing the Word is how you change it.
What truth are you merely agreeing with right now?
Is it forgiveness, but you’re still holding the grudge?
Is it generosity, but your wallet is still closed?
Is it purity, but the app is still on your phone?
Is it prayer, but your knees haven’t hit the floor?
Is it “love your neighbor,” but you haven’t spoken to them in months?
Where’s the gap between your amen and your action? Be specific. General conviction leads to zero change. Close the gap today. Not tomorrow. Today.
Pick one: Don’t try to obey 10 sermons. What’s one truth from this week you’ve heard but not done? Write it down.
Make it measurable: “Read my Bible more” isn’t action. “Read Psalm 119 for 10 minutes before I touch my phone tomorrow morning” is.
Do it scared: You won’t always feel like it. Obedience isn’t a feeling. It’s a decision. Joshua 1:8 NASB — “This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it.”
Tell someone: James 5:16 NASB — “Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed.” Accountability kills procrastination.
Stop collecting truth. Start applying it. The goal isn’t to know more. It’s to look more like Him.
Are you acting on the truth — or just admiring it?
Live Love! Let Love Make it a Great Life!!!!
Shane

05/07/2026

Proverbs 16:25
“There is a way which seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.” NASB
This proverb isn’t talking about obvious sin. It’s not describing the guy who knows he’s rebelling and does it anyway.
This is sneakier. Deadlier.
This is about the path that seems right. The one that makes sense on paper. The decision that feels logical, reasonable, even wise from your point of view. The job that pays more. The relationship that “just feels right.” The shortcut that “everyone does.” The offense you’re “justified” to hold.
It seems right. It feels right. It looks right from your angle.
But Proverbs says: the end of that road is death. Not because you were trying to be evil. But because you trusted your gut more than you trusted God. You leaned on your own understanding. Proverbs 3:5 NASB. You didn’t ask Him. You asked your feelings. You asked culture. You asked your past wounds. You asked your desire.
Jeremiah 17:9 NASB — “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” Your heart is a terrible compass when it’s not calibrated to God’s Word. Your logic is limited. Your perspective is finite. You can’t see the cliff from the start of the trail.
Saul thought it seemed right to offer the sacrifice himself. 1 Samuel 13. Cost him the kingdom. Uzzah thought it seemed right to steady the ark. 2 Samuel 6. Cost him his life. The road to death is paved with “seemed right to me.”
What feels right is not always what is right.
Your feelings can lie. Your reasoning can be skewed. Your “peace” can be counterfeit if it didn’t come from surrender. 2 Corinthians 10:5 NASB — We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.
God doesn’t want you guessing. He wants you guided. James 1:5 NASB — “But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.”
The problem isn’t making decisions. The problem is making them without Him. The problem isn’t that you’re evil. It’s that you’re autonomous. You’re living like you’re wise enough to navigate this life without the One who wrote it.
I no longer live but Christ lives in me. Galatians 2:20 NASB. If Christ lives in you, you don’t have to rely on what “seems right.” You have access to the mind of Christ. 1 Corinthians 2:16 NASB. You have the Spirit of truth to guide you. John 16:13 NASB. You have a Shepherd whose voice you know. John 10:27 NASB.
What road are you on right now that “seems right” but you haven’t actually laid before God?
Is it a dating relationship you haven’t prayed about because you’re afraid of His answer?
Is it a financial move that makes sense but has no peace from Him?
Is it a grudge that feels justified but is killing your soul?
Is it a habit you call “gray area” that’s actually blinding you?
Be honest. Where are you trusting your judgment over His wisdom?
Stop and submit the path before you take another step.
Before the next decision, text, or move — pray: “God, does this seem right to me, or is it right to You?”
Run it through the Word. Psalm 119:105 NASB — “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” If Scripture confronts it, don’t explain it away.
Proverbs 15:22 NASB — “Without consultation, plans are frustrated, but with many counselors they succeed.” Ask godly, mature believers to speak into it.
If He says no, obey. If He says wait, wait. If He says yes, walk.
The way that seems right ends in death. The way that is right — even when it’s hard — ends in life. John 14:6 NASB — Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”
Don’t die on a hill called “seemed right to me.”
Take up your cross.
Live Love! Let Love Make it a Great Life!!!!
Shane

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