Topic > Christian Living
Praying With Abandon
The night before His crucifixion, as Jesus knelt in anxious anticipation in the garden of Gethsemane, He invited His disciples to join Him in prayer. And now, He’s inviting you. Today on Discover the Word, we continue the series, “The Prayer Coin,” with an important lesson on the “abandon” side of our communication with God. Listen to Discover the […]
Saying Grace
For many years, I’ve enjoyed the writings of British author G. K. Chesterton. His humor and insight often cause me to chuckle and then pause for more serious contemplation. For example, he wrote, “You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the play and the opera, and grace before the concert and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing; and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.”
It’s good for us to thank the Lord before every meal, but it shouldn’t stop there. …
“The Prayer Coin”
We all go through times when we struggle to pray . . . when we struggle to speak with God through our tears. Today on Discover the Word, the team will open their Bibles to continue a series on prayer called “The Prayer Coin.” Discover how we can find help in a two-sided prayer Christ prayed in His […]
Praying Under Pressure
You’ve probably heard that diamonds are created under extreme pressure. And today on Discover the Word, the team will show us that often our prayers are refined by trials. Join the team as they examine Christ’s most pressure-packed prayer and find help for our praying in life’s difficult times. Be part of the conversation about “The Prayer […]
The Ministry of the Inner Life
By what right have we become “a royal priesthood”? It is by the right of the atonement by the Cross of Christ that this has been accomplished. Are we prepared to purposely disregard ourselves and to launch out into the priestly work of prayer? The continual inner-searching we do in an effort to see if we are what we ought to be generates a self-centered, sickly type of Christianity, not the vigorous and simple life of a child of God. Until we get into this right and proper relationship with God, it is simply a case of our “hanging on by the skin of our teeth,” although we say, “What a wonderful victory I have!”
Telling Time
“Westerners have watches. Africans have time.” So said Os Guinness, quoting an African proverb in his book Impossible People. That caused me to ponder the times I have responded to a request with, “I don’t have time.” I thought about the tyranny of the urgent and how schedules and deadlines dominate my life.
Moses prayed in Psalm 90, “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (v. 12). And Paul wrote, “Be very careful, then, how you live … making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:16).
I suspect that Paul and…
Have You Come to "When" Yet?
A pitiful, sickly, and self-centered kind of prayer and a determined effort and selfish desire to be right with God are never found in the New Testament. The fact that I am trying to be right with God is actually a sign that I am rebelling against the atonement by the Cross of Christ. I pray, “Lord, I will purify my heart if You will answer my prayer— I will walk rightly before You if You will help me.” But I cannot make myself right with God; I cannot make my life perfect. I can only be right with God if I accept the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ as an absolute gift.
Heartfelt Cries And Unanswered Prayers
Do you ever struggle with unanswered prayers? Maybe you even wonder if God is listening to your heartfelt cries? Today on Discover the Word, we continue to explore one of Jesus’s prayers and discover that one of His requests went unanswered. Or did it? The two-sided nature of “The Prayer Coin”—today on Discover the Word!
Honest And Real Prayer
What are the elements of a “good” prayer? Today on Discover the Word, the team will show us the two surprising characteristics of Jesus’s prayer in the garden of Gethsemane. We’re learning to make our conversations with God more honest and real. Be listening today to Discover the Word.
Praying Like Christ
Do you ever struggle with prayer? Today on Discover the Word, the team begins a brand-new series of conversations on “The Prayer Coin.” It’s a series about learning to pray like Christ, by looking at His most desperate moment of prayer. Revitalize your prayer life by being part of this series “The Prayer Coin” on Discover the Word!
"Will You Lay Down Your Life?"
Jesus does not ask me to die for Him, but to lay down my life for Him. Peter said to the Lord, “I will lay down my life for Your sake,” and he meant it (John 13:37). He had a magnificent sense of the heroic. For us to be incapable of making this same statement Peter made would be a bad thing— our sense of duty is only fully realized through our sense of heroism. Has the Lord ever asked you, “Will you lay down your life for My sake?” (John 13:38). It is much easier to die than to lay down your life day in and day out with the sense of the high calling of God. We are not made for the bright-shining moments of life, but we have to walk in the light of them in our everyday ways.
Quieting the Critic
I work with a team to put on an annual community event. We spend eleven months plotting many details to ensure the event’s success. We choose the date and venue. We set ticket prices. We select everything from food vendors to sound technicians. As the event approaches, we answer public questions and provide directions. Afterward we collect feedback. Some good. Some that is hard to hearand more details are available to the public, our team hears excitement from attendees and also fields complaints. The negative feedback complaints can be is discouraging and sometimes tempts us to give up.
Nehemiah had critics…
Advice from My Father
After being laid off from an editorial job, I prayed, asking for God to help me find a new one. But when weeks went by and nothing came of my attempts at networking and filling out applications, I began to pout. “Don’t You know how important it is that I have a job?” I asked God, my arms folded in protest at my seemingly unanswered prayer.
When I talked to my father, who had often reminded me about believing God’s promises, about my job situation, he said, “I want you to get to the point where you trust what God says.”
My…
And After That What’s Next To Do?
…seek, and you will find… —Luke 11:9
Seek if you have not found. “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss…” (James 4:3).
A Warm Welcome
“Who will hug everybody?”
That was one of the questions our friend Steve asked after he got the news that he had cancer and realized he would be away from our church for a while. Steve is the kind of man who makes everyone feel welcome—with a friendly greeting, a warm handshake, and even a “holy hug” for some—to adapt an application from Romans 16:16, which says, “greet one another with a holy kiss.”
And now, as we pray for Steve that God will heal him, he is concerned that as he goes through surgery and treatment—and is away from our church…
