PrayerLife

To effectively represent Jesus to a lost world we need to be men and women of the Word. We need to hold firmly to the message of God to be empowered messengers of God.

Faith is not passive. The Apostle Paul exhorts us to "Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called" (1 Tim. 6:11-12).

We are to use God's truth as our filter to evaluate and assess the cultural messages that bombard us every day. Each day we must choose to discard what is contrary to God's word and hold fast to what is good.

To "hold fast" or "hold on" to something means that we tighten our grip with the intention of not letting go. To "hold" to Christ's teaching means that we grasp it, tighten our grip, and allow it to transform our lives. Jesus said, "You will know the truth and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32).

Unless we are in relationship with the God of resurrection power, then we cannot expect our marriages to be raised from the dead. But if we are in relationship with Him, then nothing is impossible. Even a marriage that is lifeless can experience the resurrection power of Jesus. May you be refreshed with this prayerful Marriage Blessing.

In Luke 15 we find the story of the Prodigal Son. Its the story of one persons journey from a sinful lifestyle to his repentance and recovery. When the wayward son returns from his season of debauchery, the father responds with a joyful welcome. The Father explains, "For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate." My prayer is that you would...

"And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony" (Col. 3:14). This is not a call to feel a feeling. As risen men and women, we are to intentionally take the love of Christ that indwells us and apply it to our marriage relationship. The result will be a marriage that is raised from the dead.

Marriages can be raised from the dead because We have been raised from the dead. The Apostle Paul reveals the amazing truth that at the moment we placed our faith in Jesus, we were spiritually raised from the dead (Eph. 1:19-20). Having been raised with Christ, Paul then urges us to "put on" the virtues of Jesus (Col. 3:1-14). By faith we are to embrace and embody the Christlike qualities of compa...

An essential ingredient to a vibrant marriage is forgiveness. The Apostle Paul writes, "bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive" (Col. 3:13). We have been forgiving everything by a God who has been supremely offended, and he calls us to forgive each other in the same way.

Jesus said that the primary reason for divorce is the hardness of our hearts (Matt. 19:8). Our hearts become hardened toward one another when we allow sins to go unconfessed. James writes, "confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed" (James 5:16). Join with me as we pray about confessing

The greatest relational separation imaginable has already been reconciled. The Apostle Paul writes, "remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ" (Eph. 2:12...

The moment we placed our faith in Jesus Christ, we were given eternal life through the Holy Spirit. Jesus says the Spirit "gives life" (John 6:63). The Apostle Paul says "If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit" (Gal. 5:25). Since we received eternal life through the Spirit, let's live each day by the empowering presence of the Spirit of God.

The Holy Spirit dwells within each believer in Jesus Christ and he wants to manifest himself through your life. He wants to uniquely use you to bring glory to God, bless other believers, and draw people to faith in Jesus. Let's grow in our manifesting the Spirit!

"But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you intoall the truth" (John 16:13). One of the primary roles of the Holy Spirit is to take God's living word and reveal it to us in a way that produces living fruit in our lives.

"For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death" (Rom. 8:2). Without Christ, mankind is under the law of sin and death and will be judged by God as violators of His holy law. But through faith in Christ we are under the law of the Spirit of life. Believers in Jesus have been set free from the law of sin and death and have been given His righteou...

As believers in Jesus Christ, we are filled with the Holy Spirit of God - that is a constant reality. The exhortation to "be" filled with the Holy Spirit (Eph. 5:18) is a command to allow His presence to be increasingly expressed through our lives, our values and our choices. May each of grow in the expression of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

The Apostle Paul identifies two kinds of people on the earth. There are those who are "in the flesh" and those who are "in the Spirit." He writes, "you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him" (Rom. 8:9). Every believer in Jesus is an "in the Spirit" person. Your sin has been forg...

Jesus said, "The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). Everyone who places their faith in Jesus as their Savior enters into a life-giving and life-guiding relationship with the Holy Spirit. Everyone "born of the Spirit" is walking in a mysterious relationship with the...

Prior to placing our faith in Jesus Christ we were hopeless. Our eternal destiny was to be separated from God for all eternity. But now by trusting in Jesus, He himself is our living hope. We are full of hope because of the reliability of God's word and God's Son.

Apart from faith in Jesus we were all separated from God and considered as strangers without hope. But as a result of placing our faith in Christ we can be brought near and made members of God's household. Join with me as we thank God for his amazing grace in our lives.

In the Old Testament, worshippers marveled at the manifestation of God's presence in the temple. Now, through our faith in Christ, God himself indwells each believer. We are filled with the Holy Spirit of God and called to live a life that reflects his presence within us.

Are you dead or alive? Ephesians 2 tells us that apart from Jesus we are all spiritually dead. When we place our faith in Him, trusting Him as our savior, the Father spiritually raises us from the dead in Christ! So the question is ... have you been raised from the dead?

Before trusting in Jesus, we were slaves of the domain of darkness but now we are liberated citizens of Jesus’ Kingdom. Our identity has radically changed. There is no greater transformation or greater blessing.

The New Testament book of Ephesians tells us that we used to be "sons of disobedience" engaged in "deeds of darkness" but now we are "beloved children" who are called to imitate our heavenly Father. Join with me as we pray about understanding our true identity and living it out in our daily life.

Christians frequently suffer from mistaken identity. We tend to think of ourselves and live our lives like who we were rather than who we are ... Children of Light.