Why You Should Begin Prayer with Praise (and 5 things you can always praise God for, no matter what)
It’s a human tendency to praise God when life is good and to complain when it’s not. It’s easy to give thanks and tell others how good God is when He’s answering our prayers and pouring out the blessings, but the moment we experience difficulty or disappointment the praise dries up. What if we could turn that around and praise God all the time – even when life stinks? A good place to begin is with prayer. Jesus set the example when He taught His disciples how to pray. He begins by praising His Father, saying…
Is your quiet time with God humdrum? Does your mind wander while you’re trying to pray and read your Bible? Do you struggle with knowing what to read? Are you tired of the bland and boring and wonder why you even bother to have quiet time at all? Maybe you don’t want to give up, but just need some fresh ideas to inject life into your quiet time and take it from stale to stimulating. This post is going to show you how to take the dull out of devotions and give them a jumpstart. But first, What…
If you want to grow as a Christian, spending time with God should be a priority. But, having consistent devotional time is challenging. Life is demanding and time with God often gets neglected. Maybe you’ve tried for a week or two, or even a month, to spend consistent time with God, but it fizzles out. How do you get it to stick? How do you get to have consistent devotional time? Spending consistent time with God is not dependent on feelings, but on habit. Yes, habit. And habits take time to develop. They are formed by…
I once left my small children with my Mom-in-law for a few days. As Richard and I drove away, anxiety gripped me and I begged God over and over to be with my children. In the middle of my begging I realised I did not have faith. Had God not promised that He would never leave us nor forsake us? (Hebrews 13:5) Immediately I took that promise and turned it back on God (in a nice way, you understand J). Instead of begging God to protect my children and be with them, I began to thank God…
Does our perception of love affect our relationships? I believe it does. It affects our relationship with God, our marriages, and how we parent. It also affects how we deal with sin – in our own lives, in those of our children, and in the church. Today I’m going to try and put into words the thoughts that have shaped my thinking about love and then see how they affect marriage and parenting. Let’s jump in. God is love. The Bible says so. (1 John4:8) And nothing can separate us from this love (Romans 8:38,39). We…
Do you feel like your spiritual life is stagnant? Would you like to grow spiritually? You look at other people and wish you knew your Bible as well as they do. Their faith seems strong compared to yours. You’d like to be where they are but don’t know how to get there. If you’re like me, you are impatient and want to be “up there” already! Truth is, any kind of growth doesn’t happen overnight and not without effort. While you can’t make yourself grow, there are things you can do to help yourself…
Photo by Victoria Palacios on Unsplash Is your life an endless roundabout? You run around all day, fall into bed, get up, and repeat. Again and again and again. You feel hopeless and trapped. Your relationships are dull and boring. Life is just the same old same old and you’re tired of it. How do you get off the treadmill? How do you overcome the hopelessness? How do you get some life back into your life? No one wants to live like this. No one plans for life to get lifeless. It’s time to stop…