The God of peace be with you today.

This is an important one! Casey explains how connection depends upon commitment. “Over the course of my ministry in the local church, I’ve occasionally heard complaints from people who say they ‘don’t feel connected.’ Honestly, it’s usually a frustrating conversation for me because I don’t know how to make someone feel differently about something.”

Does it matter what posture you use when you pray? “Let me list out … prayer postures you might try that I’ve found in the Bible, since there is such a variety in the Bible itself, with the goal of helping you grow in your times of prayer.”

Ed Welch offers help for those times when your mind just gets stuck.

As the title says, here are seven essential things to know about God’s holiness.

Barbara writes about some of the hardships (and some of the benefits) of aging.

Working from home can be a great blessing, yet it can also come with some struggles or temptations. This article means to warn against some of them.

When we preach Jesus today, we preach for a response. And there is always a response. Jesus repulses and Jesus draws. But an encounter with Jesus never accomplishes nothing.

Fasting does not change God’s hearing so much as it changes our praying.
—Don Whitney

This sponsored post was provided by Burke Care which invites you to schedule care today with a certified biblical counselor.

Bonnie Tyler had a way with words,
“I need a hero
I’m holding out for a hero ’til the end of the night
He’s gotta be strong, and he’s gotta be fast
And he’s gotta be fresh from the fight”
What a song.  During danger, trials, and trauma the yearning for a hero emerges.  There’s a recognition that change can’t happen apart from a hero.  We’re lost without one.
I was listening to another woman this week.  Not a singer like Bonnie, but a woman also in crisis.  She said that she was angry, angry at God.  And she said that maybe she needs to be humble and patient.  While this does sound like the Sunday school answer everyone wants to hear, perhaps it is not the complete answer.  On one hand, she was angry at God, while on the other hand desiring qualities exclusive to God to transform her life.
When an awareness of need surfaces, the piercing question is not “where” do we go for change, but to “whom” do we go for change?
Many of us want to “be” something better… more patient or more humble.  Why is it so uncomfortable when situations transpire, and we realize we’re not these things?  It could be because, below the water line, there’s an iceberg called “inadequacy”.  Or another way to put it; a painful awareness that we’re not the hero!  We may not like what we see in ourselves, and we also cannot change ourselves, though we try with a desperate effort. An out-of-control powerlessness ensues.  It is maddening!  That awareness of need, though painful, is a conduit to what the Spirit desires for us – submission to Christ and conformity to His beautiful image.  The desire to be humble and patient apart from Jesus is a broken cistern.  A desire to be our own hero.  But our inadequacies are grace-filled reminders that not only do we have a Savior that desires to change us, but we have a Savior that desires to embrace us in all our ugliness.  The Gospel informs me to go to Jesus (John 1:1-14; 14:6).  That I go to the person who is perfect humility and patience (Heb. 4:15).  Since Jesus left us the Holy Spirit, I have the Holy Spirit in me to receive that same perfect humility and patience (John 14:15-31).  I do not manufacture humility and patience in my flesh.  That never works. I receive humility and patience from the Father, through the Son, by the Holy Spirit, and over time… I realize that I am no longer as angry as I once was as I’ve walked a path enjoying my hero’s presence.
Perhaps Bonnie Tyler’s song is relevant for our lives.  We need a hero.  But do we want the hero’s transformation of our circumstances only, or we want Him to be the sole hero of our stories?  As we reflect on who the hero is of our stories, may our prayers sound less and less like, “Lord can you make me more patient?” and more and more like “Lord, all I need is you, and you alone”.
Reflection:

As you consider your story, who is the hero?
When you consider the Lord Jesus, do you see him more for refinement or rescue, a mechanism of development or a person of delight? Why?
What steps would you take to make Jesus the hero of your life instead of you?

For more info on Burke Care and how we can help you, please email us at [email protected]

I wasn’t quite asleep but I also wasn’t quite awake. It wasn’t quite real, but it also doesn’t seem right to call it fake. Like a story that had already been written or like a tale that had already been told, it flashed into my mind in the briefest of moments.

In what must have been some kind of a waking dream, I saw myself lying in bed when an angelic envoy roused me with a message. And as surely as Mary knew, as surely as Joseph knew, as surely as Zechariah knew, in my dream I knew—I knew the messenger was reliable and his message authentic. “God sent me to tell you that Christ will return in exactly one hour.” My heart rose. My mind reeled. My feet raced. Leaping from bed, I ran downstairs, grabbed my coat and keys, and sprinted out the door. I knew exactly where I needed to be.
One scene faded into the next, and I saw myself arriving at Glen Oaks Cemetery. There is no place on earth I like to go less but need to go more. There is no place on earth where I feel greater hope or deeper sorrow. Yet this was just where I knew I ought to be. Flinging the car door open, I leapt into the predawn darkness. Up and down the rows of graves I began to run, shouting out the glad tidings. “It’s time! It’s time,” I cried! “It’s time to rise!” I ran up one row and down the next, up one row and down the next, my feet pounding over the uneven turf.
I watched myself pause briefly by the grave of a young man whose parents had written just three short words on his gravestone. They are words Aslan had once whispered to Lucy when she was overwhelmed with fears and uncertainty: “Courage, dear heart.” And those words have often given strength and courage to me as I’ve passed by that granite monument. “Michael,” I cried “it’s time! It’s time to rise! Just a few more minutes and it’s time!”
I took off running once more, but paused almost immediately, this time by a nearby grave where, just a few short weeks ago, a family had gathered to sing sweet hymns of comfort in both English and Hindi. “It’s time, my Christian sister,” I said in a shout! “It’s time to rise!”
I saw myself run on and on, up and down the silent rows, crying out the news. I stopped again, this time by a plot where another young man is buried, a young man whose parents once approached Aileen and me to encourage us, to console us, to pray down heaven’s comfort upon us. “It’s time” I shouted! “It’s time! Just a few more moments and you will rise! Your body and soul will be joined together and you’ll rise! It’s time!”
The eastern horizon was beginning to glow with the first light of day. The earliest rays of the sun were threatening to break through the clouds hanging low over Lake Ontario. The clock had ticked down to just one minute and now my feet carried me to the spot in that cemetery that has become most familiar.
With my face glowing golden with the sunrise, I paused where I’ve paused so often. On the edge of that patch of grass that has been tended by my hand and watered by my tears, I dropped to my knees. In a tone that was confident and unwavering I said, “It’s time, my boy! It’s time! Just one more minute and we’ll hear the cry of command. Just one more moment and we’ll hear the voice of the archangel. Just a few more seconds and we’ll hear the blast of the trumpet. It’s time, my boy. It’s time! It’s time to wake! It’s time to rise!” I began the final countdown: 5 … 4 … 3 … 2 … 1 …
And then—and then I became aware again. I became aware that I was in my living room, not the cemetery. I became aware that it had been a dream, not reality. But I also became aware that my face was wet with tears and my heart rich with joy. For though it was only a waking dream, it was a dream grounded in the best of all promises, the surest of all hopes.

“For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.”