Spiritual Disciplines

What if your spouse is too hurt to pray with you?

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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.

John #6 – Spiritual People Need Jesus: John 3:1-21

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What happens when a theology professor sits down to have a deep conversation with Jesus? They end up having a late-night mental boxing match about what it means to be “born again”. Jesus tells the Bible scholar that, in effect, you can memorize books of the Bible, tithe generously to the Lord, live a moral life, believe in God, and sit in church every week until you die and have your funeral in a church and still go to hell if you are not born again by the Holy Spirit. Prepare for a brain cramp in this sermon…

How do you know when it’s time to pray together?

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Praying with someone is a very intimate act.

So when you’re dating someone, when should you start regularly praying and studying the Bible together?

Too soon and you risk a lot of hurt if the relationship doesn’t progress. Too late and you miss an opportunity for God to grow you together.

It’s a tricky question! So watch Grace and I share our thoughts on how you can know when to step up spiritually in your relationship.

And if you have a question you’d like answered, email it to [email protected] today!

John #5 – Religious People Need Jesus: John 2:13-25

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Jesus showed up at the Temple, got angry, made a whip, and started sending money flying and people running? Why? Because the religious leaders did not care about worship, Jesus, or relationships. This week Jesus the Lamb turns into Jesus the Lion for some good reasons we will study together.

Jesus Is Our Eternal God

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In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He [Jesus] was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. John 1:1–3
If you were to sit down and write a book, how would you begin? Would you start by introducing yourself, letting the reader get to know a bit about you and what you hope to accomplish for them? That is precisely how many books of the Bible begin. But, the Gospel of John is not like many other books of the Bible.
The opening of John’s Gospel reminds me of a drag race. I grew up in a family of motor heads firmly committed to classic American muscle cars. My pops is currently restoring a classic Chevy. One uncle was a stock car driver, and I spent nights growing up hearing the engines roar from the pits. My brother is a stock car driver as well.
There is very little that matches the thrill of being behind the wheel when a race starts and the force of gravity throws you back into the seat as the car lunges forward from a standstill. John’s letter starts like that.
John opens by echoing Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning…” The point is that the same God who made the world has entered the world and brings with Him new beginnings. Everything and everyone, including your life and family, can get a fresh start and new beginning with Jesus Christ.
Jesus is our eternal God. That is the basic point of the opening lines of John. Before anything was created, Jesus existed. Jesus is not a created being, but rather our Creator God. He was with God the Father in eternity past and “was God.” That last line is as clear as the Bible could possibly be about the deity of Jesus Christ as God. If Jesus were at your company holiday party, He would have written “God” on His nametag. It’s that clear.
By referring to Jesus as the eternal Word of God, the Bible is here showing that Jesus is the hope and longing of both Hebrew and Greek cultures, which dominated that day. For the Hebrew, God’s speech and action were one and the same. If you know the biblical account of creation, it says over and over that God spoke creation into existence by the sheer power of His Word (Genesis 1:3, 6, 11). This is because God’s Word is all-powerful and nothing can thwart or stop it from accomplishing its goal (Isaiah 55:11).
The Greeks living at the end of the first century also clung tightly to their proud heritage, a philosophical one extending from Heraclitus (540–480 BC), to Socrates (470–399 BC), Plato (428–348 BC), Aristotle (384–327), Cicero (106–43 BC), and a host of philosophers, poets, and playwrights. At the fountainhead of Greek philosophy was Heraclitus whose image could be found on the coins in Ephesus for several centuries following his death. In his three-volume work, On Nature, Heraclitus taught that the world was created by fire and maintains an intricate balance between constant flux and overriding stability. He illustrated this point by penning the now-famous claim that a person never steps into the same river twice because of its constant change. For Heraclitus, the creation of the world, the ordering of all of life, and the immortality of the human soul were all made possible solely by the word (or logos) that was the invisible and intelligent force behind this world. Also, it was the word through which all things were interrelated and brought into harmony, such as life and death, good and evil, darkness and light, and the gods and people. For Greek philosophy, the key to all understanding began with understanding the Logos. John’s point is simple, no matter what you want to understand it’s always good to start with Jesus!
John begins his book with Jesus Christ. How can you begin your day with Jesus Christ this year in such things as Bible reading and prayer? How can you start your week with Jesus Christ this year by being involved in a Christian church? How can you start your finances with Jesus Christ this year by giving generously? How can you start your relationships with Jesus Christ this year by praying with and for others?
I will spend roughly an entire year preaching verse-by-verse through the entire Gospel of John and those sermons can be found for free each week after they are preached at MarkDriscoll.org.

Read a Book of the Bible this Week: How to Read John’s Gospel Day 1

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This year, I want to invite you to study the Gospel of John with me. For most of the year, I will be spending my Sundays preaching verse-by-verse through this amazing book of the Bible. I want to encourage you to study it with me, learning about Jesus Christ from His best friend, John.

For starters, it would be beneficial for you to simply read the entire Gospel of John this week. The book will take you a few hours to read, and if you devote roughly 20 minutes a day, you can finish it in just one week.

This may be something new for you, but I promise God will use it to meet with you and teach you about Jesus. Before you begin to read, it is always helpful to take a minute and ask God the Holy Spirit (who inspired the Scriptures to be written) to help you understand them. The Holy Spirit wants you to learn the Bible and love Jesus, and He is very happy to answer that simple request. The more you practice this, the more you will be surprised and excited at how the Holy Spirit sheds light on understanding the Word.

The entire goal of John’s Gospel is stated in John 20:30–31, “Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

No one book could tell us absolutely everything that Jesus said and did, but John wrote what the Spirit impressed upon him was most important for people to know about his best friend and God, Jesus Christ. John was one of Jesus’ disciples and spent three years seeing Jesus performing miracles, hearing Jesus preach sermons, and watching Jesus persevere under trial and temptation. John tells us quite clearly that his hope is that you would read his book, believe in Jesus Christ, and receive eternal life! As you read John, you will see his request become your reality. You will meet the real Jesus in the pages of John, and reality will alter your destiny and determine your eternity. John had a deep personal relationship with Jesus that changed his life, and he writes to help you enjoy the same kind of relationship with his best friend and God.

Today is a great day to start reading John. Since the book is 21 chapters long, perhaps it is easiest to read 3 chapters every day in the next week.

As you read it, don’t feel discouraged if parts of it are challenging for you to understand. There is an old quote that many attribute to the church father Augustine (3534-430) that says, “John’s Gospel is deep enough for an elephant to swim and shallow enough for a child not to drown.” Like a pool with a shallow end for new swimmers and a deep end for skilled swimmers, the Gospel of John is perfect for everyone no matter how familiar they are with the Bible. To help you understand what you read in John, a good study Bible with helpful commentary notes can be a big blessing. Do you have a good Bible with study notes? If not, while there are many wonderful options, I would personally recommend getting a copy of the English Standard Version (ESV) Study Bible.

I will spend roughly an entire year preaching verse-by-verse through the entire Gospel of John, and those sermons can be found for free each week after they are preached at MarkDriscoll.org.

The Boy Who Is Lord #5 – Worshipping Instead of Worrying

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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.

The Boy Who Is Lord #4 – The Family Reunion

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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.

The Boy Who Is Lord #3 – The Girl Who Raised God

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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.

From Routine to Real Relationship with God Part 5: A Study in Habakkuk

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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?

From Routine to Real Relationship with God Part 4: A Study in Habakkuk

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My wife, Grace, and I met when we were 17 years old in 1988. We married at the age of 21 in 1992. We are best friends, love one another, do life together, do ministry together, and raise five kids together. Nonetheless, even the best relationships hit rough patches and dry spells where it feels like the routine of life has overtaken the life-giving relationship.

The same thing that is true of our human relationships is also true of our relationship with God. Even our Bible study time to hear from God, learn about God, and grow in relationship with God can turn into just another thing we do that isn’t really changing who we are. It’s not that routine is bad, but that routine can become bad when it is not deepening the relationship.

A man named Habakkuk serves as a great example of how to maintain a life-giving habit of Bible reading. He was by all accounts a mature believer who knew the Bible. When a crisis hit his life, he needed a word from God, so he opened up the Word of God. There, he did a deep-dive Bible study in the book Exodus to see how God can rescue His people from a crisis. He pens his own summary of his findings in Habakkuk 3:2–16, which is essentially a page from his personal Bible study journal.

How can you improve your Bible study? How can you get out of the rut of a routine and into a real relationship? Entire books have been written on this subject, but the following suggestions might be a simple and helpful place to begin.

Three Keys to Better Bible Study

Decide between a book study or a burden study.
A book study means choosing a book of the Bible—or section of a book of the Bible—and spending weeks or months reading it, studying it, memorizing portions of it, and becoming so familiar with it that it becomes a helpful friend. A burden study is when something in your life becomes a burden and God the Holy Spirit presses you to study it in great depth. So, you trace that theme through the Bible seeking to get God’s wisdom for your burden. Examples would include: healing from a broken heart, being a good friend, or reigning in your tongue.

Don’t keep plowing the same field over and over.
Sometimes we enjoy a specific genre of literature in the Bible, author, or section of Scripture so much that we don’t much venture out from that place. When that happens, we can become like someone who eats their favorite food for every meal rather than eating a balanced diet of various nutrients. We constantly need to go to new places in Scripture to get new nourishment from God for our soul.

It’s less about how much you read and more about how much you retain.
Think of a lifetime of Bible study as a cross-country road trip adventure. The goal should not be to drive as fast as you possibly can. Instead, slow down, pull over, see sights, explore some back roads, get out and take some hikes, and appreciate all that is available. Similarly, just reading the Bible as fast as you can may not be the most helpful if you do not retain what you are reading. For this reason, it is often good to focus more on how much you are retaining than on how much you are reading.

Is any one of these three areas one where you could make improvements? What would those improvements look like?

From Routine to Real Relationship with God Part 3: A Study in Habakkuk

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Just as your body needs food, your soul needs Scripture. Without nourishment, both begin to grow weak and ill. Our Bible study time can easily fall into the rut of a rote routine that does not build relationship with God. In Habakkuk 3:2–16, we see the example of someone who has moved into a real relationship with God through Bible study. He is reflecting back on the book of Exodus and how God delivered His people from slavery and bondage in Egypt. Even though they were freed to grow in a living relationship with God by following in His presence by faith as He led them through the wilderness, they longed to go back to their dead routine. Habakkuk summarizes all of this in his own poetic words as he journals out his Bible study as a prayer to God.

In one of the key lines of his prayerful Bible study, Habakkuk asks God, “In wrath remember mercy” (v. 2, ESV). The wrath of God is not popular today. If you talk much about the wrath of God, you will quickly experience the wrath of people who do not like the wrath of God. The Bible has a lot to say about the wrath of God. In the Old Testament alone, roughly 20 different words are used to speak of God’s wrath roughly 600 times.

The wrath of God is closely tied to the holiness and justice of God. Though the Bible does tell us that God is love, the most common attribute of God mentioned in the Bible is God’s holiness. The opposite of God’s holiness is our sinfulness.

Just as we want criminals to be picked up by the police, terrorists to be stopped by soldiers, and things stolen from us to be returned, so too does God deserve justice. God’s justice culminates in a final judgment and eternal sentencing to hell where the punishment fits the crime perfectly. Jesus Himself speaks of hell more than anyone else in the Bible as the place where God’s wrath is poured out in justice against sinners.

Because we are the guilty facing a terrible fate, we might feel a bit like Habakkuk did when he said, “I fear” and “my body trembles; my lips quiver at the sound; rottenness enters into my bones; my legs tremble beneath me.”

Thankfully, in wrath God did remember mercy. Habakkuk’s prayer was answered at the cross of Jesus Christ. There, Jesus took our place and endured the wrath we deserve. Jesus put us in His place to receive the mercy we do not deserve.

The question is not whether or not we are sinners, or whether God has a right to judge us. Instead, the only question is whether or not we have placed our faith in Jesus, as Habakkuk did, and live as he said in 2:4, “by faith” in the God of wrath and mercy. This is why John can categorize everyone who has ever lived into two groups, saying in John 3:36 (ESV), “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”

In all of this, we learn that the key to understanding the entire Bible is connecting it all to the person and work of Jesus. Furthermore, the point of all Bible study is to help us grow into a deeper relationship with God, which is Habakkuk’s example.

What is your Bible study routine? Is your Bible study routine building your relationship with God? If not, what changes can be made?