In one of the most moving and loving scenes in the whole Bible, Jesus sits down with a rejected and dejected woman. In one conversation, her life changes from miserable to wonderful and God wants to sit down and do the same for you!
Ideally, your spouse is one of your closest prayer partners – someone who loves you and knows you intimately. And praying together is one of the best ways to deepen your spiritual connection.
But when past hurt means your spouse doesn’t want to pray with you, how do you establish trust and move toward a healthy prayer life?
Watch as Grace and I share some tips on how to overcome hurt and start moving toward a place of healthy, prayerful connection.
It’s one thing to know in your head that you’re forgiven. It’s another thing to truly feel free to live a new life.
If you’re struggling with feeling like you’re still dirty, even after God has forgiven you, you’re not alone. Many Christians feel this way.
The answer is to recognize the truth that Jesus’ death doesn’t just mean you’re forgiven – it means you’re washed clean, too.
Watch Grace and I discuss how you can recognize this truth for yourself. Leave the Enemy’s lies behind – and the shame he tries to pile up on you – and live free!
How do we really come to understand ourselves? That question, perhaps more than any other, dominates our thinking as we use personality tests and other tools to discover the mystery that is me. There is a man named John the Baptizer whom Jesus called the greatest man who has ever lived. People tried to figure out who John was, and he said that the only way to really understand oneself is to first understand Jesus. In that day, like ours, many people were making the mistake of looking at themselves too much and looking at Jesus too little. If you want to understand who you are, the first thing you need to understand is who Jesus is.
Luke 1:51–53
He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.
Mary has two options in light of all that has happened in her life. She can either give in to anxiety, or she can focus on history: What has God done?
In moments of crisis and doubt, choosing anxiety will lead to paralyzing fear about the future. Instead, Mary remembers God’s grace toward Abraham and the nation of Israel. She recognizes that the culmination of God’s promises is to be fulfilled in her son, the Savior of the world. She trusts that God has been working on this for thousands of years, and she believes that He is good on His Word.
Trust that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Cling to it like a drowning victim adrift at sea clings to a life ring. It doesn’t mean that everything will be fixed, but you will keep your head on straight, and you will be able to worship your way through it. Find a way to glorify God so that you might have joy and a reason to sing. Read Scripture, read church history, and read biographies. Get to know people and hear the story of God’s work in their lives, so you can replace anxiety with history. God has been good, and He will be good, because He is the same God yesterday, today, and forever.
If you struggle with despair and discouragement, or maybe even depression, let me submit to you one thing that may be very helpful: record evidences of God’s grace toward you. Like Mary, it will help you to say, “He has done good things for me.”
What has God forgiven you of? What is He teaching you? How is He changing you? Who has He put in front of you? What circumstances has He delivered you from? What opportunities is He calling you to? Your whole life might change if you could readily look back and know with confidence, He’s done great things for me.
Today, write or type out at least five specific ways that God has done great things for you in your past.
Luke 1:49–50
He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And his mercy is for those who fear him.
One of the lessons we learn from Mary’s example is to replace worry with worship. It’s okay to be concerned about your life and to make plans for your future. But Jesus says do not worry (Matthew 6:25–34). Worship is what we can do instead of worry.
Mary was a young woman with a lot to worry about, but she sings instead because she understands the goodness and richness of God’s character. Her theology (who God is) shapes her biography (who she is) and culminates in doxology (how she lives her life, in worship). She doesn’t start her song with all of her concerns or complaints toward God. Instead, she proclaims who God is and the truth of His goodness eclipses all other concerns and carries her through tough times.
What if the worry is simply too overwhelming? What if you don’t feel like worshiping? I’ll let you know a little secret: You worship your way into worship. You don’t sing because you always feel it. Sometimes you sing until you feel it.
When you’re suffering, struggling, and sinning, Satan can whisper in your ear, “God is hurting you,” or “God is tired of you.” But Satan is a liar. God does great things. Satan wants you to run from God rather than to Him. He wants you to be worrying, rather than worshiping.
What are you absolutely distressed about right now? Have you worshiped about it? A strange thing happens when we shift our focus from our problems to God’s glory. He gets bigger, which puts our worry in perspective. That’s not to say that God trivializes our suffering; on the contrary, He sympathizes with us (Hebrews 4:15). But His goodness, His power, His grace, His love is large enough to absorb all of the sin and pain and heartache of the world, relieving the burdens that would crush us if we tried to carry them.
What are you absolutely distressed about right now? Have you worshiped about it and shifted your focus from your problem to your God who rules over it?
Luke 1:46–56
And Mary said,
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
And his mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estate;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
as he spoke to our fathers,
to Abraham and to his offspring forever.”
And Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her home.
Unmarried. Poor. Young. Pregnant with God.
Mary has a lot to worry about.
Rather than worrying, however, we find her worshiping in Luke 1:46–55. Mary belts out a beautiful, spontaneous, anointed, worshipful song in response to God’s goodness and long-awaited provision. Worship encompasses all of life, but it most assuredly includes singing. Mary sings, “My soul magnifies the Lord.”
What she’s saying is that deep down, from a heart made new by the grace of God, she wants to worship the Lord. Her life may be uncertain, but she wants God to be honored and glorified because He is good even when times are hard. Her spirit and the Holy Spirit intersect to honor Jesus—the son in her womb—that God the Father might get praise.
Her song continues, and we see more of Mary’s heart. Like all of us, she is an image-bearer of God, made to mirror God. She reflects Him beautifully in her song, which highlights the love, truth, compassion, justice, selflessness, and humility of God.
Mary is a theologically astute teenage worshiper. Her lyrics are saturated with biblical language drawn from 1 and 2 Samuel, Deuteronomy, Job, the Psalms, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Micah, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah—all of this despite the fact that it would have been very unusual for a woman of her age and upbringing to be formally educated. Perhaps she heard the Scriptures read to her in synagogue each Sabbath and committed them to memory. In any case, she has chosen to live her life top-down: She trusts the Scriptures, she understands who God is, and she lives her life in light of that reality in the most difficult of circumstances.
What worries or stresses do your mind drift toward throughout the day? How can you worship God and fight for joy in these moments?
As a single, pregnant, poor teenager from a small rural town who is betrothed to be married but a hundred miles away from home without any indication that her parents are involved in her life, Mary has a lot she could be worried about. But, rather than worrying, she spends her time worshipping. In so doing, she reminds herself who God is and why she can trust him for the future of herself and her unborn baby, Jesus. In so doing, she serves as an example for everyone in stressful, fearful, and anxious situations how to replace worrying with worshipping.
This week, we see Mary and Elizabeth meet for the first time as pregnant women. Mary is young, unmarried, and carrying Jesus in her womb. Her relative, Elizabeth, is old, married, and carrying John the Baptizer in her womb. Mary makes the roughly 100-mile journey to see Elizabeth, and upon meeting amazing things happen. John is filled with Spirit, as is his mother, and they worship the unborn Jesus. Furthermore, we see that Dr. Luke the author, guided by the Holy Spirit, clearly speaks of life beginning in the womb and God saving and calling people even from their mother’s womb.
This week, we meet a young, poor, and rural engaged couple that were chosen by God to be the parents of Jesus Christ. We see a pattern in their life of receiving a word from God, bringing Jesus home, and accepting God’s will for our life especially when it varies from our dream for our life.
You are likely familiar with something called the “Stages of Grief.” A researcher named Kübler-Ross studied dying patients and those who loved them as they passed from this life. The research concluded that people go through five stages of grief in varying orders: 1. denial and isolation, 2. anger, 3. bargaining, 4. depression, and 5. acceptance.
As you read the short book of Habakkuk (you can do this in 10–15 minutes), you will likely see each of these stages of grief as he is processing his pain through prayer. As you arrive at the third and final chapter, you will see something else: worshipful thanksgiving. For the Christian, there should be a sixth stage of grief: worshiping God by faith and trusting Him to one day and some way work it all out for His glory and our good. Habakkuk 3:17–19 (ESV) says,
Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places. To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments.
In our day, this would be like saying something like, “Though there is no food in my house, no money in my account, no cure for my cancer, no reconciliation with my loved ones, and no hope for my future, I will put on worship music and sing to God from a glad heart.”
It sounds crazy right? It is easy to worship God when life is wonderful. It can be much harder to worship God when life is awful. Worship is by faith trusting that the God who took care of our biggest problem of sin will one day take care of all our problems.
The opposite of worship is idolatry. This is a big theme in the Bible, and the focus of the first two of the Ten Commandments; there is one God, and we are to worship Him alone, not idols. The final line of an entire book of the Bible says, “Keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21 ESV).
Although the thing being idolized may not be bad, idolatry is often a good thing standing in God’s place, which is a bad thing. Idolatry is often the result of seeking to use God to get what we want. The problem with this is that God is not the end we seek, but rather the means to another end we seek. We worship God so that we will get healed, get rich, or get something else we want. When He doesn’t come through, we become agitated and frustrated that our worship isn’t working. This is not how God works. God does not exist to give us our idols so that we can worship them instead of Him. Worship is seeing God as our end, and worship as a means to connecting with and becoming more like God through our relationship. Worship can happen whether we are sick or healthy, poor or rich, dying or living, crying or laughing. Even though life changes, the goodness of God does not. When God, instead of our idol, becomes the gravitational center of our emotional universe, we become healthy enough to process the problems and pains of life with God.
When change, crisis, or calamity hits our routine, we are given an opportunity to move from routine to real relationship with God through worship. Practically, this means that we go to church to be with God’s people in God’s presence, learn from God’s Word, and open our mouths and hearts to cry out to God in faith that He hears us, loves us, and will never leave us nor forsake us even if everything else is being taken from us.
What is your worship routine at church and at home? Is your worship routine building your relationship with God? If not, what changes can be made?
You are likely familiar with something called the “Stages of Grief.” A researcher named Kübler-Ross studied dying patients and those who loved them as they passed from this life. The research concluded that people go through five stages of grief in varying orders: 1. denial and isolation, 2. anger, 3. bargaining, 4. depression, and 5. acceptance.
As you read the short book of Habakkuk (you can do this in 10–15 minutes), you will likely see each of these stages of grief as he is processing his pain through prayer. As you arrive at the third and final chapter, you will see something else: worshipful thanksgiving. For the Christian, there should be a sixth stage of grief: worshiping God by faith and trusting Him to one day and some way work it all out for His glory and our good. Habakkuk 3:17–19 (ESV) says,
Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places. To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments.
In our day, this would be like saying something like, “Though there is no food in my house, no money in my account, no cure for my cancer, no reconciliation with my loved ones, and no hope for my future, I will put on worship music and sing to God from a glad heart.”
It sounds crazy right? It is easy to worship God when life is wonderful. It can be much harder to worship God when life is awful. Worship is by faith trusting that the God who took care of our biggest problem of sin will one day take care of all our problems.
The opposite of worship is idolatry. This is a big theme in the Bible, and the focus of the first two of the Ten Commandments; there is one God, and we are to worship Him alone, not idols. The final line of an entire book of the Bible says, “Keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21 ESV).
Although the thing being idolized may not be bad, idolatry is often a good thing standing in God’s place, which is a bad thing. Idolatry is often the result of seeking to use God to get what we want. The problem with this is that God is not the end we seek, but rather the means to another end we seek. We worship God so that we will get healed, get rich, or get something else we want. When He doesn’t come through, we become agitated and frustrated that our worship isn’t working. This is not how God works. God does not exist to give us our idols so that we can worship them instead of Him. Worship is seeing God as our end, and worship as a means to connecting with and becoming more like God through our relationship. Worship can happen whether we are sick or healthy, poor or rich, dying or living, crying or laughing. Even though life changes, the goodness of God does not. When God, instead of our idol, becomes the gravitational center of our emotional universe, we become healthy enough to process the problems and pains of life with God.
When change, crisis, or calamity hits our routine, we are given an opportunity to move from routine to real relationship with God through worship. Practically, this means that we go to church to be with God’s people in God’s presence, learn from God’s Word, and open our mouths and hearts to cry out to God in faith that He hears us, loves us, and will never leave us nor forsake us even if everything else is being taken from us.
What is your worship routine at church and at home? Is your worship routine building your relationship with God? If not, what changes can be made?