Talking With God In Prayer (Day 3 of 4)

DAY 3 — RECEIVING FORGIVENESS

1 John 1:9 — "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."

Talking to God
Silently confess the things you have done that are hurtful to others. Ask God for forgiveness. Then thank Him for forgiving you.

Diving In
At your next family meal, have everyone wear earplugs or earphones but talk as usual, without trying to help each other hear what you are saying. Also wear them as you clear the table as a family.

Going Deeper
When you don't come to God to be forgiven, it is as if you refuse to listen to Him. By not hearing God, you separate yourself from Him, just as you did when you suddenly could not hear your family well. Read Psalm 32:5, "I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, 'I will confess my transgressions to the Lord' — and you forgave the guilt of my sin." When you ask for forgiveness, God forgives you. It is as if He removes the earplugs from your ears, and you can hear Him again.

Talking to Each Other
—Have you ever kept something you did wrong a secret? If so, how did trying to hide this secret make you feel?
—What might keep you from going to God and confessing a sin?
—How do you feel when someone forgives you for something you've done wrong?

Talking With God In Prayer (Day 2 of 4)

DAY 2 — PRAISING GOD IN PRAYER

Psalm 145:3 — Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom.

Talking to God
Praise God for making you and everything you have, including food, a home and people who love you.

Diving In
Think about the things you're grateful for. Make a list of 10 of them. Tell someone why you're grateful for each, and praise God for all that He has given you.

Going Deeper
Through the use of short blessing prayers that relate to everyday life, people learn to praise God and express thanksgiving. The moment you open your eyes in the morning, you might pray, "Thank You, God, for my eyes. Thank You for sight." While getting dressed, you could pray, "Thank You, God, for meeting my needs — giving me clothes to wear, such as these," and at the first sight of the sun, you may declare, "God, You are so great! Thank You for your creation." Psalm 145:1-2 is a great example of how to praise God: "I will exalt you, my God the King; I will praise your name for ever and ever. Every day I will praise you and extol your name for ever and ever." Praise God today and every day!

Talking to Each Other
—How did writing down a list of things you're grateful for change your attitude?
—If you praised God for everything He has given you, how long would it take?
—How might praising God change you?

Talking With God In Prayer (Day 1 of 4)

DAY 1 — GOD LONGS FOR YOU

Matthew 28:20 — "and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Talking to God
Thank God for all the ways He loves and cares for you. Ask Him to show you how much He wants you to talk with Him daily.

Diving In
Line up a number of small glasses next to the kitchen sink. One by one, fill the glasses. Discuss how you could fill every container in your house and water would still flow out of the faucet. In a similar way, God's longing for you won't end.

Going Deeper
God is available to you at all times. Just as you can fill another glass with water simply by turning on the faucet, so you can enjoy God's presence by going to Him in prayer. Read Isaiah 30:18: "The Lord longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!" God wants you to grow closer to Him, to be filled with His love and peace, because He longs for what is best for you. Although God works on your behalf, He wants you to respond to Him, showing a willingness to share your life with Him. One way you can do that is by talking to Him daily.

Talking to Each Other
—Who is your favorite person to talk to, and what makes this person your favorite?
—Tell about a time when you really wanted to talk to this person. Why did you long to talk to this person?
—Why might God long to be gracious to you?

Finding Real Happiness (Day 3 of 3)

There are mornings when I wake up feeling fragile. Vulnerable. It's often vague. No single threat. No one weakness. Just an amorphous sense that something is going to go wrong and I will be responsible.

It's usually after a lot of criticism. Lots of expectations that have deadlines and that seem too big and too many.

As I look back, I am amazed how the Lord Jesus has preserved my life. The temptation to run away from the stress has never won out — not yet anyway. This is amazing. I worship him for it.

Instead of letting me sink into a paralysis of fear, or run to a mirage of greener grass, he has awakened a cry for help and then answered with a concrete promise.

Zechariah 2:4-5 says, "Jerusalem shall be inhabited as villages without walls, because of the multitude of people and livestock in it. And I will be to her a wall of fire all around, declares the Lord, and I will be the glory in her midst."

There will be such prosperity and growth for the people of God that Jerusalem will not be able to be walled in any more. "The multitude of people and livestock" will be so many that Jerusalem will be like many villages spreading out across the land without walls.

Prosperity is nice, but what about protection?

To which God says in Zechariah 2:5, "I will be to her a wall of fire all around, declares the Lord." Yes. That's it. That is the promise. The "I will" of God. That is what I need.

And if it is true for the vulnerable villages of Jerusalem, it is true for me — a child of God. God will be a "wall of fire all around me." Yes. He will. He has been. And he will be.

And it gets better. Inside that fiery wall of protection he says, "And I will be the glory in her midst." God is never content to give us the protection of his fire; he will give us pleasure of his presence.

Finding Real Happiness (Day 2 of 3)

 John 17:24 — Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.

Believers in Jesus are precious to God. And he loves us so much that he will not allow our preciousness to become our god.

God does indeed make much of us, but he does so in a way that draws us out of ourselves to enjoy his greatness.

Test yourself. If Jesus came to spend the day with you, sat down beside you on the couch, and said, "I really love you," what would you focus on the rest of the day that you spend together?

It seems to me that too many songs and sermons leave us with the wrong answer. They leave the impression that the heights of our joy would be in the recurrent feeling of being loved. "He loves me!" "He loves me!" This is joy indeed. But not the heights and not the focus.

What are we saying with the words "I am loved." What do we mean? What is this "being loved."

Would not the greatest, most Christ-exalting joy be found in watching Jesus all day and bursting with "You're amazing! "You are amazing!"

• He answers the hardest question, and his wisdom is amazing.
• He touches a filthy, oozing sore, and his compassion is amazing.
• He raises a dead lady at the medical examiner's office, and his power is amazing.
• He predicts the afternoon's events, and his foreknowledge is amazing.
• He sleeps during an earthquake, and his fearlessness is amazing.
• He says, "Before Abraham was, I AM," and his words are amazing.

We walk around with him utterly amazed at what we are seeing.

Is not his love for us his eagerness to do for us all he must do (including die for us) so that we can marvel at him and not be incinerated by him? Redemption, propitiation, forgiveness, justification, reconciliation — all these have to happen. They are the act of love.

But the goal of love that makes those acts loving is that we be with him and see his jaw-dropping glory and be astounded. In those moments, we forget ourselves and see and feel him.

So I am urging pastors and teachers: Push people through the acts of Christ's love to the goal of his love. If redemption and propitiation and forgiveness and justification and reconciliation are not taking us to the enjoyment of Jesus himself, they are not love.

Press on this. It's what Jesus prayed for.

Finding Real Happiness (Day 1 of 3)

 2 Corinthians 4:4 — The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

Test yourself. What is your mindset? Do you begin with God and his rights and goals? Or do you begin with yourself and your rights and wishes?

And when you look at the death of Christ, what happens? Does your joy really come from translating this awesome divine work into a boost of self-esteem? Or are you drawn up out of yourself and filled with wonder and reverence and worship that here in the death of Jesus is the deepest, clearest declaration of the infinite esteem of God for his glory and for his Son?

Here is a great objective foundation for the full assurance of hope: the forgiveness of sins is grounded, finally, not in my finite worth or work, but in the infinite worth of the righteousness of God, God's unswerving allegiance to uphold and vindicate the glory of his name.

I appeal to you with all my heart, take your stand on this. Base your life on this. Ground your hope in this. You will be free from the futile mindset of the world. And you will never fall.

When God's exaltation of God in Christ is your joy, it can never fail.

Suffering (Day 4 of 4)

Suffering is a fundamental part of the Christian faith ~ 2 Timothy 3:12. And your Godly response to it grows through encountering God and meditating on His Word. The following verses, when memorized, can encourage you toward a Godly response to suffering.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4 — Praise be to God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.

Galatians 6:2 — Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

1 Peter 4:19 — So then, those who suffer according to God's will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good.