Asbury Church

There is something beautiful about the sweetness and simplicity of a child's prayer as they go to their Heavenly Father.

Jesus emphasized the importance of childlike faith by taking the time to help His followers understand it. In doing so, a few traits stand out: humility, humbleness, and simplicity. Yet, there is also a persistent quality that seems relentless. Have you stopped praying because you have yet to see God move? Have you distanced yourself from God because your prayer was not answered?

Could it be that Jesus wants us to approach the Lord with a child's perspective to better understand His goodness, faithfulness, and the complexity of prayer?

Acts 4:23-31 is a remarkable prayer! Peter and John have just spent the night in prison after healing a man and proclaiming the good news of Jesus. Rather than praying for protection, they ask the Lord to give them the ability to "continue to speak your word with all boldness."

They could have focused intently on their challenging circumstances.

Instead, they turned their attention outward to the mission of God and asked for strength to keep going.

This simple shift in perspective can bring deep and lasting change to your life.

If the answer to every prayer were an immediate “Yes!” then prayer would be easy.

Prayer warriors are forged in the furnace of adversity, grit, determination, and perseverance.

Like most things that matter in life, prayer takes work.

Breakthrough is possible.

And so, keep going. One day at a time.

Have you ever realized that children are our reinforcements?

Building up and building for the next generation is the best way to push back against the darkness, to really make a difference.

Hence: "family is how we fight.”

But, it’s not easy.

Even to talk about it makes a lot of us uncomfortable.

On Father's Day 2025, we dived right into the discomfort and the controversies.

Yes, this stuff is hard, but it’s also good!

I believe that the Gospel of John is one of the greatest works of art in all human history. Its first twenty chapters are a masterpiece. And the conclusion that John gives us at the end of chapter twenty—after the resurrection, the greatest thing that has ever happened—after Jesus calls Mary by name, and she turns and knows—after Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit on the disciples—after Jesus shows Thomas His scarred hands and side—the conclusion that John gives us after all of that is just perfect:

30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name [John 20:30–31].

The screen finally fades fully to black. We finally exhale, deeply moved. We shift in our seats, slowly stand and stretch, and silently begin to make our way out of the theater. We don’t want to say anything and ruin the moment, so we walk single file down the stairs at the end of the row. The credits begin to roll.

And then, when we least expect it, the screen lights up again and the story continues!

John chapter 20 seems to end on the perfect note, but John is a peerless artist and what happens next is beyond perfection.

There is another chapter—an epilogue.

With John 20:30–31, nothing more needs to be said about Jesus. His story is complete, and we have all we need to know to believe in Him.

But John knows there is more to be said about the church and its mission, and that is the purpose of his beautiful epilogue in chapter 21.

In John 18, we see something extraordinary happen: an entire cohort of Roman soldiers knocked flat by the power of Jesus!

The disciples are afraid, but Jesus has everything under control.

There is a lesson there for all of us.

My favorite Bible verse is John 16:33.

It’s Thursday evening. Jesus has gathered the disciples in the Upper Room for his final moments with them before his betrayal by Judas later that night and his crucifixion the next day.

He sums up his teaching to them with what I believe is essentially the perfect Bible verse:

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have *overcome* the world.”

In other words:

1. Things will be hard.

2. But don’t worry, Jesus wins.

And maybe my favorite part of this verse: the Greek verb translated in v. 33 as “overcome” is the verb nike, from which the shoe company got its name. Every time you see a pair of Nikes, therefore, you should remember this verse!

In John 17, Jesus gives us insight into the heart of reality and tells us something important about God.

The reason this matters is because the most important thing in our minds is our idea of God.

Did you ever play the telephone game when you were in school?

In the game of telephone, the teacher whispers something in a student’s ear, who then passes on the message to another student, who then passes on the message to the next student, etc. The last student repeats the message out loud. Hilarity ensues—the final message is always wildly divergent from the original.

I was thinking of the telephone game when I read through John 15–Jesus’s famous words: “I am the vine, you are the branches.”

We have developed this idea in American Christianity that a Christian is just someone who one time prayed a certain prayer. But when you compare this idea with what Jesus says in John 15, it seems totally crazy!

According to Jesus, either you are abiding in him, or you aren’t—there is no middle ground.

As he begins the last week of his life before the crucifixion, Jesus shares a very simple principle: life comes through death.

"Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”

--John 12:24-25

What needs to die in your life for God to bring new life in its place?