God Provides Strength
Our days can be challenging and may leave us wondering if we have the strength to make it…
God is Trustworthy
I currently live in North Carolina, and there are days where we might experience what feels like 3-4 different seasons in one day. We will wake up and its 30 degrees, it will then warm up to 70 by lunch and get back down to 50 by sun down. Not only do those days make it hard to figure out what to wear, but they just totally throw your rhythms off!
And while there are many things in life that change, the price of milk and eggs for instance—One thing we can count on not changing is the nature of who God is. Psalm 90:2 says, “Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” Simply put, God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. Regardless of what else is happening, He will remain who He is and continue to be reliable.
This means, we can with complete confidence place our entire trust in God. We can and should trust Him with our lives. We should trust Him with our struggles and challenges. We can trust Him to supply all of our needs.
As a next step today, I’d like to encourage you to begin trusting Him. Tomorrow morning, before you start your day, I’d like to challenge you to do two things, thank God for waking you up and then read one scripture. It can simply be a verse. This will help you begin to learn more about who God is so that you can better know how to trust Him. If you aren’t sure where to start, you can simply watch one video in this app everyday and read the scripture that accompanies each one in the notes below.
Discussion Question:
How would your life change if you no longer worried about the troubles you face in your life?
God is in Control
Have you ever had a situation that worried you so much because you just couldn’t control the outcome?—Of course you have; we’ve all been there. A situation with our kids, something at work, an unexpected emergency have all worried us at times. And you have probably said, “Why is this happening to me right now and how can I stop it?!”
What has often comforted me during those moments is knowing who God is and understanding His nature. Genesis 1:1 says, “ In the Beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Meaning, before anything else existed, God did. He was always present and He was always in control. He was in such control that He not only created the heavens and the earth, but everything else. The sun the moon, the stars, the animals and even us as people.
This has been a comfort to me because it reminds me that even when I am not in control of what is happening to me, God is. The term we used to describe this is sovereign. God has been, currently is, and will continue to be in control.
So the next time you’re faced with a situation that has worried you a bit, invite God in to help you deal with it. You can pray a prayer similar to this one: “Lord, I know I am in a situation that I can’t control, but I know you are able to control and solve all things. I am thankful for who you are. Please help me navigate this situation and experience peace in my life. In your name we pray, Amen.“
Discussion Question:
Share a time in your life where something worked out for you, even though you couldn’t control the outcome.
The Nature of God
Do you like BBQ? Well I do! And there is a theory that suggests that the Carolinas is the place where BBQ originated. See, the Carolinas are the only region in the US that has all of the different types of BBQ and sauces. True story.
Now I don’t know if that means BBQ started down here, but I do know it is a sign of the importance of origin stories. We all like to know where people, things and concepts originate.
In 2 Corinthians 13:14, Paul closes out his final letter to the church at Corinth by saying, “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” In this one verse, He is reminding us about the Trinity, and it’s role in the origin of Grace, love and fellowship.
Jesus gave us things we didn’t earn—That’s grace. God gives us what we need even before we ask; that’s a sign of love. And the Holy Spirit has promised to always be there with us: that is fellowship.
How we appreciate and relate to each member of the Trinity should be informed by this truth. It is where our understanding of these concepts should originate. How we treat one another should be influenced by this fact.
We should be gracious with each other because Jesus has been gracious to us. We should love one another because God, the Father has loved us. We should be willing to fellowship with one another because the Holy Spirit constantly fellowships with us.
I’d like to encourage you to dive deeper in your spiritual growth and understanding of how to live this out. Check out our featured resource, this week, 5 Marks, for an in-depth look on how to live out these concepts.
Discussion Question:
Which of these three is the hardest for you to live in your everyday life: Grace, love or fellowship? Why?
The Essence of God
Hi. I’m Wade. I’m a Husband, a father, a son, a pastor, a DJ and a friend. Depending on your relationship to me, I take on one of those roles. I am the same person, when I take on each of those roles, yet I am unique in how I carry out the duties required by each one of those roles.
It is easy for us to understand this because all of us take on different roles in our lives, yet we continue to be the same physical person for each role. When we think about God and the Trinity, we often get confused because He doesn’t operate in the same way.
Jesus’ last instructions to his disciples are found in Matthew 28:19. He said, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” What Jesus was establishing to his disciples, was the concept of the Trinity—One God in three persons. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Each has a role, each is a distinct person, each is fully divine—they share one essence; they are all on the same level. Yet together, they make up one God.
The Trinity has a very significant application to prayer. The general pattern of prayer in the Bible is to pray to the Father through the Son and in the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 2:18). Our fellowship with God should be enhanced by consciously knowing that we are relating to each member of the Trinity!
So, the next time you pray, I’d like to challenge you to acknowledge all three persons in the Trinity by name. Ask the Father to protect you, the Son to lead you and the Holy Spirit to guide you. And thank God for looking out for you.
Discussion Question:
As you consider that, what are some ways that you plan to get to know God better during this season?
How We Set Our Kids up to Thrive
In our last video we talked about what it takes to set our kids up to thrive.
But…how?
It’s actually quite simple and only requires three things (that you already have, by the way):
- You. (check!)
- Your home. (check!)
- Your calendar. (and that’s the real topic of this video)
The bottom line: In order for our kids to feel that they are worth showing up for, we’ll have to show up for them. And when we show up, it’s important that we LISTEN to what they have to say.
The best way to do that: an intentionally planned and upheld family conversation in your home each and every week. As a church that wants to see your family thrive, our challenge for every family is to adopt the following plan:
- Choose a time your family will gather at a table in your home each week just for the sake of a conversation. And then:
- Stick to the time.
- Prioritize the time.
- Incentivize the time (make it fun!)
- Come prepared with a way to start the conversation…but pro-tip, don’t try to control the conversation. Let it flow. Your goal: just to create a place where your kids can feel safe to talk and to ask tough questions. This isn’t a time to manage behaviors from early in the day.
- Power through the awkward. Not all of the conversations will go well. Sometimes people will get sent to their rooms. Sometimes spaghetti-o’s will be thrown. Sometimes the worst part will be all the silence. Sometimes questions will be asked that you can’t answer. All of it is worth it.
If you instantly have all of the reasons why this won’t work, then you’re not alone. Most of us think, “But my child is 3. We can’t have a conversation.” Sure…but you are communicating something when you keep sitting down together. And you keep prioritizing your child.
Or we think, “Our schedule is just too busy with all of our extracurricular activities.” You’re probably right. Is there something that will have to go to make this work? Or is there an unconventional time that your family will have to gather each week? Whatever you have to do, do it.
Because in the end, not asking the questions or choosing to prioritize the time doesn’t change the fact that your kids need you and really do want to talk to you. And if they aren’t asking you tough questions or grappling with their emotions in front of you, it doesn’t mean it’s not happening. It just means you aren’t a part of the conversation. Whose advice are they seeking instead? Or, worse, are their own thoughts the loudest thing they hear as they gradually come to believe things you’d never want them to think?
Of all the questions you could ask yourself that would serve as a barrier to incorporating a family conversation into your weekly rhythm, I’d love to counter them with a different question for you to ponder:
What happens if you don’t do this? What happens if your child doesn’t have a safe, consistent place and the most important voice in their life providing a time each week that they can count on to hear and be heard?
Grab your calendar and your family. Find a table and look across it at the people God gave you. What do they need you to see? What do you need them to see? And how can this lead to you both seeing something only God can reveal in these moments of true connection? Of all the battles you have to choose as a parent, this is the one worth fighting for.
What It Takes to Set Our Kids Up to Thrive
In a lot of ways, being a parent or caregiver seems to come with a passing or failing grade each day. We are largely driven by fear that our kids won’t know what they need to know to survive without us or that they’ll leave us impacted more by what we did wrong than what we did right. Added to that are the staggering stories of kids who are anxious, depressed, or even choosing to take their own lives. All of it can easily contribute to us parenting in a way that reduces our interactions with our kids to managers of behaviors and schedules and meals. We begrudge the battles we face with our preschoolers and tiptoe around our teenagers, trying not to set them off.
If you are identifying with this, it’s largely because all of our managing and fears is rooted in a good place of wanting the best for our kids. We think if we were a little wiser, or more confident, or could just finish a book on parenting or find a parenting mentor, we could set our kids up for success in spite of our weaknesses.
The bad news is that there really are no guarantees that our kids will be resilient, loving, followers of Jesus…but my guess is you knew I was going to say that.
The good news is that there is a clear and consistent way to stack the odds in your child’s favor, and YOU are the one who has the greatest amount of control over it. Yep. YOU. Broken, messy, non-parenting-expert you.
And it starts by understanding that all of the needs your child has, from their first day to their last, center around one common need: the need to be seen. A lack of adults caring and connecting with our kids can be detrimental to our kids’ emotional health and well-being, and can certainly limit their ability to believe that they are worth loving by us and by God. This separation from the truth of their self-worth limits their ability to thrive, overall, and impacts any ability for them to feel that they can make a significant impact on the world around them.
This sounds like we just added more fuel to the fear fire, but in reality, this is a golden opportunity for us as parents. Why? Because out of anyone our kids know, we have the greatest access to them. The possibility for us to CONNECT with them, encourage them, coach them, and connect with them is ours to own first and is the key to preventing despair and to providing hope.
Outro to 5 Marks
We hope this series of conversations was encouraging to you to trust and become more like Jesus in your everyday life. God has created you to thrive and experience an abundant life as you grow in your relationship with Him. As you finish this growth track, we want to encourage you take the next steps God is leading you to take. Most importantly, don’t try to grow in your faith alone. It is so important to start spending time with Jesus for yourself and to find a community with other followers of Jesus you can share the journey with. Thank you again for taking the time to invest in your spiritual health. You can find some resources to help you take your next steps below!
- Daily Devotionals
- Find community
- Spiritual Health Assessment
- 30 Day Devotional to dig deeper into the 5 marks
- Other Spiritual Growth tools
5 Marks: Share Willingly
For many people, the concept of sharing our faith can seem intimidating. We can worry we might not know enough about the Bible or how to answer a tough question. The good news is we don’t have to all the answers to share about the hope of Jesus, we just need to love people where they are and be willing to share how He has made a difference in our lives. When we share our story and the Gospel with others, we grow stronger spiritually and our friends begin to see how God can become real to them too.
Read:
Reflect:
- How does Paul say we should go about sharing our faith?
- If someone asked you, “what difference has Jesus made in your life?” what would you say?
- Who are people in your everyday life you want to know the hope of Jesus?
- Spend some time praying for them and for opportunities to share the hope of Jesus in everyday conversations.
Give Generously
When we think about the idea of “giving generously,” we often think of something people want from us instead of what God wants for us. God doesn’t want us to waste our lives trying to build our own kingdom that will pass away, He invites us to be give our lives to build His Kingdom that will last forever. Just as Jesus showed us God’s love by giving His life generously for us, we can know we are growing spiritually when we want to follow His example with our time, talent, and resources.
Read:
Reflect:
- In your own words, what does this passage say about what Jesus has done for you?
- How does Jesus set an example of “giving generously”?
- What would it look like for you to give more generously to Jesus and His Kingdom?