People tend to think of prayer as something everyone knows how to do—but them. We come from a culture where prayer has been a thing for a long time, and most people are timid or unsure about prayer. It can feel kind of weird. People get worried they are doing it wrong. “Do I kneel, sit, clasp my hands, lift my hands….Are there certain words I need to use? Is it working? I’m not sure it’s working…” Mother Theresa said, ‘you learn how to pray by praying’ and she’s right. And by ‘better’ I don’t mean you prayers become fancier or more effective at getting what you ask for. Prayer is not ultimately about getting what you ask for. God has already promised to provide for those who seek Him. It’s about knowing God a little better and opening your heart to Him.

Check out 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (NLT): “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.” These are not just words written a long time ago. They are the inspired wisdom of God. This is God’s chosen instrument for life change. God uses these words to get us ready for every good work: all the good things He wants to do in us and through us. Imagine for a second some cool future God has in store for you. He wants you to accomplish something, help someone, make a difference or experience something. But you are not yet the person you need to be to do the thing you are meant to do. You need to grow into that role. The Bible is what God uses to grow you up, transform you and equip you to do the works you are called to do. Some of us feel that yearning to do more, and God is like, “I’m with you on that. I want you to do more, but first you need to become more, and that means you need to grow.”

“Hebrews 4:12 (NLT): For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.” This truth is alive. This truth is powerful. It’s sharp, meaning, it cuts through all the nonsense and tells you how things really are. In fact, if you have ever found yourself offended or a little uncomfortable with what is in this book, that’s a healthy thing. It means you are open and paying attention. It cut you a little, and it should, because it’s sharp. But the bible never cuts you like a knife does…on accident. It cuts you like a scalpel does, on purpose. The point is healing. The point is to cut away attitudes and patterns of thinking that hold you down. And notice where it cuts most often: your innermost thoughts and desires. These are like the engine that drives your life. The more you expose yourself to the word of God, the more God uses His word to transform you from the innermost to the outermost. It cuts deep, so that we can have deep and lasting change.

It takes the people in the church to pass along the emotion and the meaning of what happened that day on a cross 2,000 years ago. That means you need to grow. You need to commit to fellowship, and make sure you don’t walk alone. You need to pray on your own and with others. Because we want the next generation of Christ followers to receive the significance of Jesus, His sacrifice and the grace of God. He ran into the jaws of death when everyone else was running away. He gave His life to save us. Was cut off from the father so we could call on God as our father. He was forsaken, so we could be brought in. And He is not done saving people, not by a long shot, and so He looks to you and me to stand in the gap and be examples of the love and mercy of God. That’s our ultimate squad goal: to share Christ, and to do it together. And experience the joy of that togetherness as we share the love of our savior.

Sometimes it can be hard to let go of our plans, right? You can admit your feelings of disappointment or loss, even admit your helplessness, but still cling to the ways you think God should act and how life should be. When you feel all shook up the things you want most are quick solutions, clear paths, valid explanations, but there is no guarantee God is going to show up on your schedule and in the ways you expect. But one thing is guaranteed--He will show up. Here’s what I’ve found in my own life: God may not meet your expectations, but He will always meet your needs. The Bible says God doesn’t leave us in our suffering, but meets us in our suffering to bring His comfort and strength in His ways.

Jesus models commitment. Before Jesus was born, the Bible teaches us He existed as God in eternity past. He had it all, but He gave it up to bring salvation to us. That means He came to where we were, put up with our habits, listened to our needs, and cared about our cares. He tied his future to ours and said, ‘I will never leave you and never forsake you.’ Love commits, and to fully love the person in your life you have to commit. You need to say in word and deed, ‘I will never leave you and never forsake you. I am in this for the long haul. My future is your future.’ Don’t ever threaten divorce just to get your way. Don't run off when things get hard. Plan dates together. Plan trips together. Talk about your goals and dreams. You care for each other by committing to each other. Jesus modeled this commitment to us and to the church.

Sometimes you have to look within to see the problem. You have to takes some things apart. The same is true with our emotions. If you feel sluggish, if you can’t get up to speed, or if you feel on edge…it’s time to look without that other person or the situation—it’s time to look within. You need to check your heart and find out what’s going on in there. Accepting Jesus does not magically make you emotionally mature and healthy. Jesus sets you free from your past, but you may not be set free from the pattern of your past. You can be a Christian and you can know a lot about the Bible. You can be a follower of Jesus for 20 or 30 years. You can be very spiritually mature one the outside, and you can be emotionally immature at the same time. Take some time today to create space for God to work on what’s going on in the inside.  

Some of us may feel very powerless right now. Powerless over excess in your life, a habit you can’t break, an addiction, or over food. God loves you no matter what the number on the scale is, no matter how the years have changed you, no matter the wrinkles or gray hairs, no matter your image, and no matter what you’ve done. Out of that love, we can access God’s power. God started a good work in you through faith and He will carry it to completion. He won’t abandon you or turn His back on you because you fail, but He is available to help us in our times of need to move towards greater health in Him. I love how Paul described God’s power in 2 Cor. 4:7-9 (NLT): “We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves. We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed.” We may still be pressed, but not crushed! Perplexed but not driven to despair, hunted but not abandoned, knocked down but not out. God’s power is our portion.

We take gifts from God that are meant to be used or enjoyed in proper moderation and our desire for more takes over. We all wrestle with desires. Maybe that desire comes from ignoring loss or pain, so we self-medicate with food, drinking, or pills. Or we throw ourselves into our work at the expense of everything else. That desire for more drives us to keep seeking pleasure to provide us with something only God can provide us with, which is real and lasting peace. Take hope today. God loves you and He is available. Direct your cravings to God and find satisfaction in Him. It’s time to realize that God is our portion. What the Bible says is more important than what the scale says or what other people say, or even what we tell ourselves. He loves us in Jesus, forgives us, and His power is available.

Believe God is with you when you’re so tired that you want to quit. Believe God is with you when you fail, when you feel lost, when you come to the end of yourself, when you are broken, when you feel alone, when you feel worried, when the future is frightening, when your past haunts you, when the pain feels overwhelming, when you’re frustrated with your health, when you’re upset at your sin, when you look in the mirror and don’t like what you see, when life feels like a dead end, when you’re waiting, when it’s dark, when your employer says it’s over, when the person you love says it’s over, when everyone says it’s over…it isn’t over because God isn’t finished. Believe God is with you!

Deep down we tend to wonder and even question, is God really for us?  And many times people can find themselves wandering far from God, feeling like they have completely messed up and wondering if they can ever come back to Him. They may not use this term, but many feel spiritually lost. Have ever wondered about what God thinks about those who might be spiritually lost? Throughout our new series, God Is For You, we want to encourage you to open yourself up to the truth that God is for you!

When you go to the doctor and not feeling well, what’s one of the first things the doctor says to you?  Stick out your tongue. Because your tongue reveals something about what’s going on inside of you. James says that in our own lives our tongue is so significant because it steers our lives and it talks about deep internal things that are happening. If you want to know where you are going to go in the next 5-10 years, look at what you say.  If you want to know the direction your life is moving, look at your conversations. Look at the words that are coming out of your mouth. You form your words and then your words form you.

Luke 12:15 says, “Take care! Protect yourself against the least bit of greed. Life is not defined by what you have, even when you have a lot.” One of the most effective ways you can take care and protect yourself from trusting in money or taking pride in money (which Jesus simply calls greed), is to be generous. How will you be generous today?

What does patience look like? Patience responds with empathy. Envy is wanting the good things another person has. Envy often sounds like this; “Must be nice…” Must be nice to stay home all day. Must be nice to go out whenever you feel like it. Must be nice to eat my food and use my Internet without having to pay for it. Must be nice to be so important and busy that you don’t have time for an old friend. Patience presses pause on that emotional reaction so you can have empathy. Empathy is identifying with another person’s struggle. Must be hard to go out there and earn a living. Must be hard to manage the meals, the kids, and the house. Must be hard to deal with all those school pressures. Must be hard to have so little free time. Your focus shifts from the pressure you feel, to the pressure they feel. You empathize. This doesn’t mean you give in. It means you don’t blow up. Sometimes we have to stop and remember: God has been patient with me. So we have to try our hardest to do the same with others.

I love what Paul says in Philippians 4:6-7 (NLT): “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.” Notice that the first thing Paul addresses after commanding people to be joyful is the area of worry. Overthinking. Self-rumination. Worry is how happiness leaks out of our lives. So if we can slow down that worry and stop the overthinking when it comes over us, then we plug up that leak. I love that Paul offers up a new habit to put in its place: prayer. Now, you may feel the way I do when I hear this. Oh, great. Really? That’s it? Worry feels so strong, so constant. It grips you. But this is one of those things where we have to commit. Worry is an attack on happiness, and we need to fight back with prayer.

We all get into relationships hoping to share happiness with another person. This is why we have kids, why we make friends, and it’s why we invest in our families and seek romance. Then pressure shows up in that relationship, and you get things from that relationship you didn’t expect or want. The pressure to take ownership of someone's destructive behavior turns love into co-dependency. The pressure of dealing with someone who is pulling away or too controlling turns love into a wedge that drives people apart. The pressure of expectations not being met turns love into selfish demands or self-pity. All of these pressures turn love into something you didn’t expect and don't want. So how do we press pause on all the pressure and expectations and get back to the basics of love? Patience and kindness. Patience and kindness transforms the pressure we feel into the love we want.

Paul sums up the posture of marriage this way: 1 Corinthians 7:4 (MSG): “Marriage is not a place to ‘stand up for your rights.’ Marriage is a decision to serve the other…” Marriage is a place where we grow in our understanding of each other’s needs and seek to meet those needs. As we do, we often find the feelings of love can be restored, forgiveness can happen, and what once made the other person so irresistible to us can be rekindled.

Jesus’ Work = My Worth. When God looks at you, He no longer sees your shortcomings. All He sees is Jesus. He sees His perfect child in whom He is well pleased. He places on you the highest value, the value of Jesus’ death on the cross. Everything is worth what another is willing to pay, and God paid the highest price imaginable for you. Your worth is so high in His eyes that you can't ever do anything to add to it. So stop trying. Rest in that. Have confidence in Jesus’ work. And then have confidence to do God's work. My Worth = God's Work. You are so prized, so valuable and so perfectly gifted, God has work for you to do. Not to earn His approval, but because of it. Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” He has plans for you. Good plans. Plans to be involved in helping others. Plans to have meaningful relationships and do meaningful work. All you have to do is hold firmly and have confidence in the work of Jesus. We know God's love by holding on to God's Son.

Jesus modeled influence. Influence based on love and encouragement rather than fear and punishment. Fighting for people rather than fighting against them. Over the years a lot of people have modeled this influence to great success. Rather than trying to keep the people below you in their place, you say, “If I can help them rise, I rise with them.” At work we ask, “How can I help my supervisor win? How can I help and serve my company and my clients?” At home we ask, “How can I help my kids and my spouse?” It might be that you encourage them or invest in them. If your child has an interest, then lean down and take an interest. It may not be your thing, but if it’s their thing you have to find a way to make it your thing. Learn the names of your neighbors and the people you work with. Learn what matters to them and invest a little of your time and attention in what they care about. Kingdom influence bends low to lift others up.

As we deal with the challenges of life, what can start to happen to us is exactly what happened to the Hebrews—we stop living with the expectation that Jesus can and will save us. We start to feel like we are completely on our own and we revert back to old ways of thinking and acting. You start to make most of your decisions without praying or considering God at all. You feel such pressure to make life better you become willing to compromise your values to get what you feel you need. When we stop expecting better things to come from God we seek those better things elsewhere. We want a relationship to make us feel complete. A vacation to make us feel alive. A job or family to give us purpose. Entertainment to keep us sane. Money to make us feel secure. Talent or looks to make us feel valuable. But it doesn't work! We never find the better we are looking for apart from God. We only find more work, more frustration and more disappointment. You are meant for better things! Not things that come with life, but things that come with salvation. So send off your requests to God. As many as you want! Be expectant that He can and will show up in the midst of your struggles.