Prayer is a global phenomenon. About 85 % of the world’s population are part of a world religion where prayer of some form is an integral part of their lives. Muslims pray 5 times a day. Jews pray 3 times a day. Buddists pray with the use of motion in a flag or a cylinder. Hindus pray to multiple gods.  Even Atheists admit to praying in times of desperation. Why is this? Why is it that billions of people across different religions, cultures and levels of prosperity all participate in prayer? Prayer has been and will continue to be a deep desire in humanity because we are created in the image of God, and in all humans is the desire to have a connection with where we came from. But it is only in Christianity that prayer draws the individual to an intimate exchange with God. That intimacy is revealed in the fact that Christians call God Father, because he is the origin of our existence. In no other religion is God as personal or accessible to the follower. 

One of the most rewarding aspects of being a father is when his children call him father and talk with him. And when a child cries out “father” or “daddy” or “appa” the father wastes no time in responding and taking action to alleviate the distress that caused the cry. The father and child relationship is a great example of what Prayer is. We cry out to our heavenly father for help and He is quick to hear and respond to our needs. Jesus tells us we need to have the faith of a child to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. But that attitude of childlike faith needs to be an attitude of our ongoing relationship with our Father in heaven. Prayer is the habit of talking with God as a child talks with their father. Join us this Sunday as we look at the Healthy Habit of Prayer.

Additional Resources

Book – Prayer by Tim Keller

RightNow Media personal Study – The Disciplines of Abiding

Article – The Prayer God Answers

Podcast – The Role of Faith in Prayerhttps://share.transistor.fm/s/72a4f559

Article by Local Author – A (God-Centered) Path from Anxiety to Peace

Video – Introduction to Prayer

Book – Fasting for Spiritual Breakthrough, revised and updated: A Practical Guide to Nine Biblical Fasts

Article – The Pur­pose of Fasting

https://groupleaders.org/curriculum-feed/spiritual-pathways-activity

Unfortunately, much of Christianity has a very narrow understanding of worship. That worship is confined to that part of the Sunday service where we sing. Or that we haven’t really worshiped unless we have a strong emotional response to a “worship experience.” Worship is so much more and the best way to understand all that worship entails is to simplify its definition. Worship is the practice of being with God.  In John 4:23 Jesus tells us the Father seeks worshipers. In his book, Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster defines worship as, “. . . our response to the overtures of love from the heart of the Father.” The more you hear the heart of God from His Word and understand the depths of His love for you, the deeper and more intimate your worship of Him will be. 

The Devil is a sneaky guy who wants to prevent the Christian from experiencing true intimacy with God, so he does his utmost to fill our lives with everything else but being with God. As we develop the habit of being with God we need to consider making room in our lives for times of solitude, to come apart from all the noise of this world and simply be with God. This Sunday we will spend some time in Psalm 27 where David says he will “inquire in the beauty of the Lord.” In an art museum benches are placed in front of the works of art to afford the museum guests a place to fully inquire to the beauty of the art. The world we live in, including nature and our fellow humans, are God’s creation. It is through those we will see the beauty of God, if we will only take the time to be with God. Join us this Sunday as we continue our Healthy Habits Campaign with understanding how worship needs to be a regular habit of our lives. 

This Week’s Resources

• Podcast – <a href="http://<iframe width="100%" height="180" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless src="https://share.transistor.fm/e/b931970d">The Heart of Worship – Dallas Willard
• Article – Wor­ship: A Prac­ti­cal Guide
• Article – To Wor­ship is to Touch Life
• Video – The Discipline of Silence and Solitude
• Audio Sermon by Dallas Willad – Solitude & Silence Celebration and Worship
• Audio Sermon by Tim Keller – Worship

For the last 10 weeks we have been working our way through the first 5 chapters of John’s Gospel. This is a good place to take a break because John 6 starts a new section in John’s Gospel and with Easter in 3 weeks a pause is appropriate. After Easter our church will hold a 6 week, Church-wide focus on spiritual disciplines: Healthy Habits for Spiritual Growth. The subject I preach on Sunday’s will also be the content of our small groups meeting through the week. Be looking for more details about thi in the coming weeks. 

This Sunday I am preaching from Romans 12:9-21 a message titled “Sincere Love Overcomes Evil.” We live in a world that has no shortage of evil in it. From the Russian invasion of Ukraine to something as common as unkind words exchanged between two people in conflict.  Evil of varying degrees permeates the world we live in. Our text this Sunday concludes with the statements “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” In this passage the Apostle Paul calls believers to combat evil with sincere love. Of all the things we are called to do as Christ followers, this has to rate as one of the hardest because it goes against our nature. The normal human reaction when evil is directed toward us is to repay the hurt or worse, seek revenge. Romans 12:9-21 beautifully characterizes the sincere love we as believers need to display when confronted with evil. Join me this Sunday for this relevant message with practical takeaways for everyone. 

When it comes to verifying a person’s true identity it requires more than just their word that they are who they claim to be. We expect that when we apply for a membership or a credit card, we will need to provide an acceptable form of identification: a driver’s license, tax bill or even our Social Security Number. When we apply for a job or even a volunteer position we are asked to provide references from people that know us to be who we are.

Last Sunday, in the first half of John 5, Jesus made the bold claim that he was equal with God the Father. A claim that was offensive to the Jewish leaders and challenged to the point they wanted to kill Jesus. A common opposition to Christianity today is an attempt to degrade Jesus from God incarnate to just a good moral teacher and influencer. A good person but not God. Christians need to have confidence that Jesus is who he claimed to be because we will face a constant barrage from humanism that Jesus is a phony.  In the second half of John 5 Jesus provides the verification of who he claims to be. In this passage we will see that Jesus uses a personal reference, a philosophical reference, an intellectual reference and a historical reference to prove his testimony is true. Then I will add a few other references from Church history as well as our current time that add to the credibility of Jesus’ claim to be God in human flesh. Join us this Sunday for “The Testimony of Jesus.” 

In the ancient world every father desired to have a son that one day would take over whatever the family business was. Even today we sometimes see a local business that is named in that way:  “Andrew & Son’s Home Repair.” In the ancient world this was an important part of society that ensured the continuation of vital services for the community. As the son matured and became responsible, he would enter into an apprenticeship with his father where the father would train him in all the necessary aspects of the family trade. The father would do this out of love for his son and the son would do this with respect toward his father. The goal of the apprenticeship would be for the son to execute the trade in the same way as the father.

John 5 begins with a unique miracle, the healing of a man that had been crippled for 38 years. This miracle serves as a sign that points to the purpose for which Jesus came to earth: to do the work of the Father. In the verses that follow the miracle we will see a description of the relationship between Jesus, the Son and His Father. The language that is used in these verses very much portrays the relationship between the Father and the Son as an apprenticeship. What is the family business of the Godhead? To bring life. Jesus came to fulfill the work of the Father by offering life and life eternal to those who would believe. Join us this Sunday as we consider this fascinating passage from John 5. 

Have you ever wondered what it would have been like to be with Jesus and witness first hand one of His miracles? To see him heal the sick, restore sight or walk on the water. Many people today think it would be easier to believe in God today if they could see some kind of a supernatural sign from God. But that is not what Jesus teaches in John 4. In this passage there is a clear emphasis on the Word of God and the need for people to respond in obedience to it. The last verses of Chapter 4 tell of a royal official who had a son that was gravely ill. Jesus tells the man that his son will live. Before the man actually could see his son to verify the healing verse 50 says “The man took Jesus at his word . . .” There is a pattern established in this narrative: faithful obedience to the word of Christ paves the way for God to do a miracle. The same is true for us today. If we want to see God do miracles in our lives, we must be taking God “at His Word” through faithful obedience. For the marriage that needs to be healed, that healing will only come when the people in that marriage are walking in faithful obedience to God. Financial healing will only come when there is faithful obedience to use our resources as God wants us to use them. Emotional healing will only come after we have sought to bring our emotions to God in faithful obedience, expressing our deepest feelings to God and trusting him through our deepest fears. Join us Sunday as we consider what it means to take Jesus “At His Word.

John 3 contains some of the most well-known verses in all of scripture: Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus regarding the necessity of being born again, as well as John 3:16, the most well-known verse in all of scripture (it is on bumper stickers and posters at sporting events.)  As great as those verses are, we lose some of their meaning when we look at them isolated from the rest of the chapter. While we know chapters and verses were not part of the original writings of the Bible, but were added to make references easier, the 36 verses of chapter three definitely are a unified thought. John 3 is written with literary devices that unify the 36 verses, clarifying the deeper meaning they possess. Sunday we will see this chapter starts and concludes with references to things from above, namely Jesus and how the Kingdom is offered through Jesus. John 3 is truly a masterpiece of writing that reveals the beauty of God in profound ways. Join me this Sunday as we consider things “From Above.”