Taught by Grace

Why did Jesus command us to pray what He commanded us to pray?  Why do we pray what the Lord's Prayer teaches us to pray?  We pray it because of what the last phrase says - For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever, amen.  This last phrase shows us two reasons why we pray this way: It all belongs to Him It all belongs to Him forever! We pray this prayer because thi...

Jesus teaches us to pray for our needs and shows us what our needs are. These last three petitions teach us that we are to bring our needs to the Father and show us what our most fundamental needs are. Jesus taught us to pray for these things to show us that these are what we most truly need. So what does the child of God need? What requests does our Father want us to make? For Him to Meet our Dai...

The Lord’s Prayer begins with a petition for God’s name to be hallowed. God receiving the glory, honor, and worth He deserves is to be the goal of our praying and living because it is the goal of everything. However, we are immediately confronted by a hurdle we must jump over to understand this. His name is not hallowed in the earth as it should be. God’s name is hallowed when His kingdom comes an...

What should be the priority of our prayers?  What should be the priority of our lives?  The priority of our praying and living must be the glory of God.  Jesus sets this as the priority in the model prayer. The priority is God and His glory.  Jesus wants the priority of our praying to be the glory of God because the glory of God must be the priority of our lives. We pray hallow...

Before Jesus gets into the what and why of prayer, He is clear about who we are praying to. We are not praying to a distant deity or weak person, but to a good and glorious Heavenly Father. This is where we must begin in our study through the Lord's Prayer. Our prayer lives are often weak, anemic, and cold because we don't view God as we ought. This week, I show you two truths about who we are pra...

If you are a son or daughter of God, you know that you need to pray, need to pray, and do pray. However, if we’re honest, most of us feel pretty unremarkable about our praying. We don’t pray fervently enough, regularly enough, or enough at all. Prayer becomes a burden upon many shoulders instead of being the means to lay burdens at the feet of our Father. Perhaps, we may even feel like it’s pointl...

The Bible is our daily bread. We need to eat up every single day. If it is our daily spiritual nourishment, how do we get more out of it every day? I think getting more out of our daily Bible reading begins by approaching our daily Bible reading well. In this episode, I look at some very practical ways that we can get more out of our God's Word on a regular basis. 

I know many have a re-invigorated desire to read, study, and know God’s Word, so I’ve decided to take a couple of episodes at the beginning of this year and speak to you on the priority and practice of Bible reading and study in our lives as Christians. This week, I want to remind you about what the Bible is. If we have the correct view of the Bible, we will be moved to read, study, and live the B...

We have heard the Christmas story hundreds of times before, do we really need to listen to it again? In a brief episode this week, I want to remind you to listen to the Christmas story again.  It's not about a decree from Caesar, a couple going to Bethlehem, or even that there was a babe lying in a manger. It is about the babe in the manger being the Savior of the world. The good news the ang...

James 5:13-20 describe how believers are to be involved in each other's lives. We pray for one another, rejoice with one another, confess to one another, and restore one another. There is no room for believers to live the Christian life alone.  There are many ways you could outline this section. I think you could take verses 13-15, 16-18, and 19-20 and create three separate studies. As you know (w...

There's a goldmine for us at the bottom of James 5:12, however, we have to dig a little for it.  Join me as we dig out the truth that God has laid at the bottom of this verse. We will answer these questions:  What does it mean to swear?  Why did James and Jesus prohibit making oaths?  How do we reconcile that with other events and passages in the Bible?  What are we to do...

Suffering is routine. It’s something that we face and deal with in diverse ways and at different times. It ranges from trials that aren’t really that big to difficulties that are massive. From the nuisance of a runny nose to the devastation of a cancer diagnosis. From a bad breakup to the unexpected death of a loved one. From not getting into the college of your dreams to losing the job you have b...

James has a specific message for the ungodly rich men described in three words - Misery, Futility, and Calamity. However, this message isn’t just for them. There are important truths for us to receive as well!

In this week's episode, we dive into James 4:13-17 to examine this passage and answer the big questions that it raises about the future, decisions, and life in general.  First - Is it sinful to plan for the future? Is it sinful to think about what college I will go to? Is it sinful to consider what job I’d like to have? Is it sinful to think about where I want to live and who I want to marry?...

If I asked you to give me a list of Biblical commands, I imagine that you could come up with a pretty long and thorough list. However, I doubt the command that we are looking at in this week’s episode would make it onto your list. Did you know that there is a specific command about how believers are to talk about other believers? James 4:11-12 ushers this command to us. It is very clear - don't sp...

After a brief stop in the book of Jude last week, we return to our study through the book of James. This time, we finish up the section on spiritual adultery in James 4:1-10. James clearly showed in verses 1-6 that our sin breaks our communion with God, now, he shows us what the answer is. He shows us that path back to God from sin. It's not a path of glory, but it is necessary and in the end, God...

This week, we take a brief pause from our study in James to dive into the wonderful doxology at the end of Jude. In this, reminds us that God is able to keep us and finish us, therefore, we praise Him alone! May the Lord encourage you in this.

This week, we dive into the first half of James' fierce attack on the worldliness within this congregation of believers in James 4:1-10. He is like a spiritual surgeon, directing and diagnosing the reason for the wars and fighting among these believers. That was merely the surface problem. There was something far deeper - idolatry. They had become spiritual adulterers.  As we look at this tex...

All true wisdom begins with God and proceeds from Him. It begins with Him. Psalm 111:10, Proverbs 1:7, and 9:10 all describe how the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge. The Bible holds nothing back. The only wisdom that makes a person truly wise begins and ends with God. Here’s the point - you will never be truly wise unless the wisdom that you have comes from God. Therefore, if...

Who is really wise? James 3:13-18 asks this question and answers it by showing that people may be wise according to two different standards - the world or God. The world has wisdom and God has wisdom. Throughout this passage, James never says that the world doesn’t have wisdom, but he’s very clear that it isn’t God’s wisdom. He puts a clear divider between the world’s wisdom and God’s wisdom. We n...

Thomas Watson penned this most pointed quote on the necessity of guarding our speech: “God has set a double fence before the tongue, the teeth, and the lips, to teach us to be wary that we offend not with our tongue.” Now, why is that the case? Why did our tongues need to be put under maximum security? Why did our tongues get placed behind the lip and teeth gates, as Watson called it? This week, w...

Our little tongue is like the bridle that controls a horse, the rudder that directs a ship, and the spark that starts a fire. It is very small, but it can do untold damage.  A little gossip here turns into a wildfire of division and strife. A little comment towards a person becomes a lifetime of resentment and bitterness. A little flirtatious remark turns into a sinful relationship and a ruin...

James 3:1-12 can be summarized in a phrase from a children’s song, “Oh, be careful little tongue what you say.” This is true of our speech in general as we’ll see in next week’s episode, but it is also especially true for those who stand and teach or preach to the people of God, which is where James begins this comprehensive section on the tongue. This section on the tongue begins with a specific...

What kind of faith do you have? James 2:14-26 teaches that true faith should move us to action.  At the heart of James' argument is a call for believers to have faith in action. If they don't, it's as worthless as telling a starving, freezing person "God bless you!" instead of buying them a meal and a coat. He argues again and again that faith without works is dead. It belongs in the morgue r...

Today, we take the first step in studying James 2:14-26. It is one of the more difficult and important passages in the book of James, so we’ll examine it over the next two weeks. This week, I point out some important preliminary points and then get into the practical illustration James gives in verses 14-17.