Friday, February 14, 2025

When You Don't Have the Words to Pray

 By: Lauren Thomas

Have you ever felt so broken, so anguished, so hurt, that the only prayer you can offer is a meager groan? Me too. Have you ever been unsure of what exactly to pray? Not known what outcome to pray for or how to pray to that end? Me too.



Thank God that that’s all it takes sometimes. In Romans 8, Paul writes this encouragement: that even when we don’t know how to pray, even when we have no words to pray, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us.

 

26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

Romans 8:26-27 ESV

 

The Greek word that has been translated Holy Spirit involves these definitions: helper, advocate, comforter, one who is summoned to come alongside. These are just some of the roles of the Holy Spirit, according to Jesus in John 14:26.

 

Do you feel weak sometimes? Take heart! Summon the Spirit of God to help you.

 

Do you feel broken sometimes? Look up! Summon the Spirit of God to comfort you.

 

Do you feel discouraged? Lift up a shout! Summon the advocate to fight for you.

 

The Holy Spirit is interceding on your behalf. To intercede means to pray on behalf of another, often as a go-between. In Hebrews 7:25, we also see intercession on our behalf: Jesus “always lives to make intercession for us.” You are never praying alone. And the one praying with you is working with Jesus and the Father to bring about God’s will for you.

 

In Romans 8, Paul goes on to say that what we are going through, and the intercession offered by the Spirit on our behalf, has this ultimate, end-result: God’s best for us, our good, and eventually, glory.

 

Reflection:

When was the last time you considered the role of the Holy Spirit in your prayer? Next time you pray, ask the Spirit to come alongside you. Recognize his role as comforter, helper, and advocate. How might this change how you pray?




Thursday, February 13, 2025

Love Over Anger

 By: Grace Metzger

bless those who curse you, and pray
for those who spitefully use you.
Luke‬ ‭6‬:‭28‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

At my job I have to deal with a lot of angry and hostile people at times. It isn’t fun and can sometimes I find it hard to control my temper when dealing with them. It would be easy to treat them how they treat me or my employees, but should that be how I handle them? 

But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those
 who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for
 those who spitefully use you and persecute you.
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭5‬:‭44‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

God has made it quite clear on how we should treat our enemies. I don’t think God telling us to love each other is a new concept to most, but that doesn’t mean that it comes easy to everyone. So how do we find love for those who treat us poorly? We know we should, but how can we when it’s hard?

 Beloved, if God so loved us,
 we also ought to love one another.
I John‬ ‭4‬:‭11‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

I have found that keeping 1 John 4:11 close to my heart has helped me find kindness and love for others. It reminds me of how awful I’ve treated God at times but how He continues to love me. Meditating on this verses helps me remember that everyone gets mad, annoying, or rude. Even I do! How can I be angry when people are reacting just I like I have in the past?

I challenge you this week to find a verse that reminds you to love others. Meditate on this verse and keep it close to your heart. It can be 1 John 4:11 or it could be another one. Just find a verse and keep it with you, use it when you feel your frustration with others raise.

Discussion question!

What verse about love first comes to mind?



Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Our Call to Bear Fruit

 By: Rebekah Hargraves 



Photo Courtesy of: Delia Giandeini




Now the next day, when they had come out from Bethany, He was hungry. And seeing from afar a fig tree having leaves, He went to see if perhaps He would find something on it. When He came to it, He found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. In response Jesus said to it, “Let no one eat fruit from you ever again.” And His disciples heard it. So they came to Jerusalem. Then Jesus went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And He would not allow anyone to carry wares through the temple. Then He taught, saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’”….And Peter, remembering, said to Him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree which You cursed has withered away.” So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God.”   
 —Mark 11:12-17, 21-22


The good news of the gospel is woven throughout much of what I write on my blog and in my books, as well as what I discuss on my podcast. I regularly seek to show women how Paul’s words in Romans 7 and 8 are the antidote for guilt, shame, and self-condemnation. I quote Psalm 103 often, reminding readers that the Lord “knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust” (verse 14). He knows we still have a sin nature we will have to fight against, and He knows that we will sometimes succumb to those temptations. Even so, Paul reminds us in Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” All of this is right and true, good to remember, and freeing to the soul.


All of those beautiful truths, however, are also just a portion of the whole story and picture of the Christian life. It isn’t enough for us to simply delight in and relish God’s amazing grace toward us in His having freed us from condemnation and guilt. We were never meant to simply remain in that place of only being thankful for the gospel. We were always intended to then walk out the implications of the gospel. We were designed to be sanctified more and more into the image of Christ. 


The Christian life begins with our experiencing immense gratitude for God’s amazing grace, and then continues on into a life of increased obedience as a result of our gratitude.


This is not about legalism, mind you. Obedience and legalism are not the same thing. Legalism is an adherence to man-made rules, an embracing of not just true commands actually found in Scripture but also additional parameters added onto them by man. Legalism is about striving to be perfect in an effort to be approved of and accepted by God.


Obedience, on the other hand, stems from a freedom, a love, and a gratitude that come from knowing you are already approved of and accepted by God as a result of the blood of Christ that covers you and the righteousness of Christ which is now your own. When you realize the depths of what God has done for you through Christ, that love and gratitude you feel is what then inspires your heart to want to live a life of obedience through the production of good fruit.


Jesus was so infuriated with a fig tree with no fig
s because of how it actually serves as a symbol of people who claim to follow God but bear no good fruit that is in keeping with repentance (see Matthew 3:8). This is likewise what angered Him in the temple. 


Here was the temple of God—a place of prayer and communing with the Father—being turned into a place of business. It wasn’t that Jesus was against people earning money. It was that the way and method in which they were doing so was completely inappropriate. Not only were these people extortioners, charging folks for the animals they would need for sacrifice in the temple, but their doing so also kept the poor and destitute out on the fringe. The poor were financially and physically ostracized and marginalized in the temple as a result of these moneychangers and their booths. Jesus, ever one with a heart for the poor and the destitute, the downtrodden and the mistreated, was rightfully angered against these extortioners. Their actions were not at all representative of people who professed to follow God.


In keeping with what Jesus did to the fig tree and how He feels about us producing good fruit in our lives, John 15 is another most important passage to consider. In verses 1-8 Jesus says,

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.”

This is Christ’s desire for us as His followers: that we would bear much fruit—fruit that is good for us and those around us—and brings glory to His name.



Reflection Questions:


1) If you were to do a self-assessment, how would you say you are doing in the bearing-fruit department?


2) What does it mean to bear good fruit?


3) How can you more faithfully bear good fruit in the future?

Monday, February 10, 2025

People & Fixer-Uppers

 By: Joanne Viola


 

Every house we lived in needed some work. They weren’t fixer-uppers per se, but over the course of time, we knew they would need some changes.

We took the changes, one might call updates, little by little. We did them over the years, as money afforded, and time allowed. But never did we do them all at once.

Even now, when something big goes wrong, I can wonder if we should have had a new house. Meaning, a home where everything was brand, spanking new. Never used before. Then perhaps nothing would break down, or fail to operate. And then I remember.

“Failure can be a good thing.”

The words came out of my mouth recently. And they are true. We tend to view failure through the lens of embarrassment and hopelessness.

Much like when something breaks down in an older home. When the toilet won’t flush or the sink backs up, we must look for the reason. We can plunge, use drain declogger, snake the pipe, and eventually call a plumber.

Yet failure can bring about good changes. We are forced to look at the root cause.

I think God likes to fix us people as well.

For I am confident of this very thing,
that He who began a good work in you
will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.

(Philippians 1:6, NASB)

He doesn’t give up on any one of us. He knows we are frail. So the process of change begins to take place. It occurs over the days and years as we read His Word, look at our hearts, and allow Him to heal our souls.

God has been working with flawed people since the beginning of time. None were perfect from the start. Their flaws were transformed into strengths.

Fear became courage.
Doubt became faith.
Anger became peaceable.
Blindness became sight.
Impetuousness became boldness.

“And He has said to me,
“My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.”

Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses,
so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.”

(2 Corinthians 12:9, NASB)

 

Failure can be a good thing.
God is not looking for perfection from us,
for it is His power which is perfected in us.

 

Reflection:
Is there a failure in your life which brings you embarrassment or hopelessness? Give it to God in prayer. Surrender it to Him and invite Him to work in the middle of it, to perfect it and use it.

 

Image by Freddy from Pixabay


 

Friday, February 7, 2025

Praying "Your Will Be Done"

By: Lauren Thomas

What does it really mean to pray, “Your will be done”? Jesus prayed that prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane moments before his arrest and subsequent crucifixion. What a terrifying outcome to such a small phrase. And while we might feel better to leave those words there in the garden, Jesus also used them when he taught us to pray in Matthew 6:


Pray then like this:

“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
10 Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
    on earth as it is in heaven.

Matthew 6:9-10 ESV


While theologians discuss many subtypes of God’s will, at the most basic level, God’s will can be categorized as His revealed will and His secret will. God’s secret will involves His sovereign, unsearchable plans. This is perhaps what Jesus referenced in Gethsemane. God’s revealed will regards his perfect plans for us as outlined in his precepts and commands. This is the concept we see mentioned in the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6.


 

When we pray for God’s revealed will to be done, we are praying that the world would come under the rule and reign of Jesus, that God would help us to live righteous lives, that “none perish, but all come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). When we pray “Your will be done,” we are verbally confessing our submission to His sovereignty. Truly praying God’s will involves humility, surrender, dependence, and personal alignment with His character.

 

First John 5:14-15 also references praying according to God’s will, reminding us of the confidence we have in God through Jesus, and encouraging us that by praying according to God’s will, we will receive what we have asked.

 

While we might pray God’s will be done when we find ourselves unsure of how to pray, or when we don’t know if our wish is in line with God’s plans, praying God’s will is so much more. It is a posture that honors the Father. It is an attitude we should include every time we come before Him in prayer. And it is a way to increase our confidence in God’s work in our lives.

 

Reflection:

Have you ever felt confusion about what it means to “pray according to God’s will”?

What prayers can you pray today in a posture of humility, submission and dependence on God?

How might this increase your confidence in God?