prayer

  • John 17:1-5

  • John 15:1-8

    What It Means to Abide in Jesus.

    Jesus gives us a beautiful illustration in John 15. Jesus is the vine, and we are the branches. If we abide in Him, we will have life and bear fruit.

  • John 14:12-15

    Principles of Prayer:

    Jesus is going to depart, and the disciples cannot go with Him. Jesus says, “Do not let your heart be troubled (John 14:1).” While the disciples had Jesus physically present, they did not need to pray to Him, making the instructions given by Him in John 14:12-15 to pray in Jesus’s name new information.

    Prayer is a tool given to Christ’s disciples to encourage their belief in Him. We cannot grow in our faith without prayer. Believers must rightly understand and exercise prayer in agreement with the Word of God.

  • John 12:27-36

    Jesus Will Be Glorified through Suffering.

    In John 12:27-36, we come to the end of Jesus’ public ministry. We’ve already talked about the curious Jew worshiping Jesus, the marvelous worshipper Mary, and covetous Judas. As we look at these groups and their responses to Jesus, hopefully we aren’t interested in just calculating what we can get from Jesus like Judas did. Instead, let’s elaborate on how the seed has to die in order to bear fruit.

  • John 11:6-16

    Jesus' Ministry to His Disciples.

    Last week, we studied Jesus' human love for the family of Lazarus, Mary, and Martha. This week, we will look at how He ministered to His 12 disciples during this crisis.

  • 2 Thessalonians 3

    Our 75th Anniversary Celebrating God's Faithfulness.

  • John 6:16-21

    The Person, Posture, and Patience of Jesus.

    John writes his gospel with the purpose of proving that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, so that we might believe, and in believing, that we might have life through His name. John places a discourse of teaching before or after each of the miracles he writes about. John 6:16-21 includes two of four miracles that occur in this account. Other details, including the other two miracles, are found in the parallel accounts in Matthew 14 and Mark 6. In both the feeding of the 5,000 and this passage of John 6:16-21, we see that God is Provider, providing food and safety to His people. Jesus is Jehovah-Jireh in the flesh (John 6:35).

  • Nehemiah and Esther

    The Providence of God, Part 2.

    God’s providence is always active and moving in and through our lives. If we have any hope of flourishing as God intends, which is growing in holiness toward Christlikeness, we must discipline our inner man to the powerful impact of the fact of God’s providence. Flourishing is the property of those whose lives are lived according to the interest, values, and concerns that exist in heaven.

  • God’s Grace in the New Testament

    God’s Grace in Difficult Times

    The majority of the New Testament writings begin and end with the mention of help from heaven in the form of grace that comes to us by the Spirit of God. Grace saves us, and it is grace that consistently changes us through the glorious agony of sanctification as we live our everyday lives. When grace is our tutor unto Christlikeness, whether things are good or bad, we are pressed to forget those things which are behind and to move forward unto the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. We pursue Christ, allowing His grace to mold us into His image.

  • 2 Timothy 3:1-5

    Natural and Unnatural Affection

    Why do senseless killings happen? What does God’s Word say we can do as believers?

  • Job 3

    The worst calamity is to be suffering and not to know why.

    By Job 2:10, Satan has done his worst to Job and retreated from his life. God is silent and doesn’t make sense, and Job is alone.

    Three of Job’s friends come to commiserate with him in Job 2:11-12. They respect his agony and sit with him in silence for 7 days.

    In chapter 3, Job speaks. He asks the question “Why?” twenty times in this book, and a few are in this chapter. He asks why he was born (Job 3:3-10), why he is still alive (Job 3:11-19), and why he can’t die now (Job 3:20-26).

  • 2 Corinthians 13

    Defending the Value of Spiritual Authority.

    Unbelief seeks to undermine spiritual authority. Without integrity, authority undermines itself. In 2 Corinthians 13, Paul continues to write about what Spirit-filled authority with integrity is and does.

  • 1 Peter 4:7

    The Doctrine of the Church.

    There are many sources of pressure in our lives. Job, school, deadlines, finances, expectations, marriage, family, singleness, success, athletics – all these can exert pressure on us in ordinary life. Cultural circumstances and social situations can add more pressure on top of that. What do God's people focus on prioritizing when living under intense pressure?

  • Psalm 77

    The Christian Prayer of Lament.

    Did you know that one-third of the Psalms are laments? These honest struggles with difficult circumstances were sung by the congregation of Israel in corporate worship. We don't often pray like that today, especially in a corporate setting. What can we learn from these prayers that were inspired and preserved for us in God's Word?

  • Psalm 22

    Jesus, as the predicted Messiah, fills out infinitely and eternally all human suffering in order to eradicate it!

    At Christmas time, it is fitting to turn our minds to prophetic truths concerning Jesus the Messiah. The books of the prophets are usually the first to come to mind, and the literal fulfillment of the circumstantial facts they predicted hundreds of years prior to Jesus’ coming is nothing short of miraculous. Another prophetic witness is found in the Messianic Psalms. In total, twenty-five different psalms (one out of six) include at least one Messianic prophecy. Messianic psalms are quoted in eleven New Testament books.

    These psalms are prophetic in a special way: in the words and feelings of the Psalmist were found the very words and feelings of the Messiah. (See Hebrews 2:12.) The Psalmist knew that the coming Messiah would “fill out” the emotional and physical suffering he was experiencing by experiencing them in a way he never could. The pain he spoke of figuratively, the Messiah would know literally.

  • Psalm 66

    If God would hear your prayer, then He must hear your praise!

    We are familiar with Psalm 66:18: "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me." We need to understand it in its context. Often, this verse makes us question whether God hears our prayers; however, the following verses show that the psalmist had assurance that God heard his prayer because he was not one who cherished sin in his heart. The main emphasis of this psalm is the need to give praise to God. In fact, 14 different ways to praise God are mentioned in this psalm. We can be assured that if God would hear our prayer, then He must hear our praise.

  • Psalm 138

    Stability through Thanksgiving.

    David's life was highly dramatic, but he didn't get caught up in it. What gave him balance, stability, and reference for his direction? Psalm 138 shows us 3 components to the "gyroscope" of David's life.

  • 2 Corinthians 1:6-11

    Awareness that Refreshes Our Hearts.

    Paul makes the Corinthians believers aware of his own hardship in 2 Corinthians 1:6-11. We can benefit from other people's struggles. They encourage us to persevere and endure in our own walk of faith until Christ returns.

  • Ecclesiastes 5:1-7

    Wisdom for Worship.

    This week, our study of Ecclesiastes moves from chapter 4's examination of oppression, competition, isolation, and position to adoration in chapter 5. While living through the difficulties of a broken world, God wants us to know His will and be refreshed when we come to worship Him. Solomon shares 3 aspects of wisdom to prepare our hearts for worship.

  • Psalm 13

    From sorrow to singing, Psalm 13 reflects our human emotional shifts and points us to stability.

    Psalm 12 expresses how David felt when he had been abandoned by godly friends. In Psalm 13, David is so alone, he feels he has been abandoned by God Himself. This feeling is prompted by the length of his suffering. Perseverance in a long time of difficulty is perhaps the most trying to our minds and hearts.

    David's struggle will feel familiar to many people of God. In a marathon of trust, we often ask similar questions. Is God one who abandons? Through David's wrestling, we will learn that God's character and work confessed in prayer sustains us during long, drawn-out periods of suffering.