Last week we saw that praying aligns our will to God’s purposes. Praying the words “your name be honored as holy” means I have a responsibility to not discredit the name of my Father by my actions. Further, my concern will be that God’s purposes will be accomplished, volunteering to help expand the kingdom in the hearts of humanity. Jesus continues in his prayer:

So much of the prayer has not been focused on ourselves. We are focused on God, his kingdom, and God’s will being accomplished on the earth. Now we turn to our needs. I would like for us to realize that we can talk to God about our physical needs. In fact, our Father wants us to talk to him about our physical needs.  As a parent, we want our children to talk to us about the things we need. We want them to speak to us about what is going on in their lives…

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Jacob has had quite a night. Messengers have told Jacob that Esau is coming to meet him with 400 of his men. Jacob believes that Esau is coming to take vengeance. He has split his traveling party into two groups in preparation for his attack. Jacob has prayed for God to rescue him from his brother. God’s answer to Jacob’s prayer has been to wrestling with him all night, putting one of his hips out of joint. But the wrestling with God had a message. You have struggled with God and with people and have prevailed. In short, you have struggled with people your whole life and have overcome because God has been with you. In fact, no longer will you be called “swindler/cheater” (Jacob). Now you will be called “struggles with God” (Israel). Now it is morning and Jacob is limping from the struggle. He looks up and he sees Esau coming with his 400 men. God has confirmed that he is with Jacob. But here comes Esau. What is going to happen? What is this encounter with Esau going to teach God’s people for all time? Open your copies of God’s word to Genesis 33…

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In our series looking at the book of Jonah we have seen the relentless grace of God on display toward his rebellious prophet. After preaching to the capital city of Assyria, Nineveh, God relented from the disaster he had proclaimed against them. God shows that he will relent if we will repent. Jonah knew this was God’s character and express that this is the reason why he ran and quit from being God’s prophet (4:2). Jonah is so angry with God for doing this that he prays for God to kill him. God does not carry out his wish but asks a simple question. “Do you do well to be angry?” This brings us to the final act of this book regarding God’s teaching of his wayward prophet. Open your copies of God’s word to Jonah 4 and we are going to look at the final verses of this book…

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We are looking at how God is going to transform the character of Jacob. The beginnings for Jacob are not recorded in positive light. His name means that he is a swindler. His brother says that he is a cheater and a deceiver. Jacob has taken advantage of his brother to take the birthright from him. Further, Jacob deceived his blind father to steal the blessing from him. Therefore, his brother Esau wants to kill him and this is why Jacob must run away and live with his uncle in Haran. But now Jacob is ready to take his family and return to his homeland of Canaan. Jacob leaves Haran with his family and sets his face to go to Gilead (cf. Genesis 31:21,25). But what happens at the beginning of Genesis 32 is very important to understanding everything that happens next in Jacob’s life…

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Jonah has been on a journey with God. God told Jonah to go to Nineveh and preach against it. Jonah has gone the other direction. But God has shown relentless grace toward his wayward prophet and in the third chapter of Jonah we see his prophet proclaim judgment on the city. The news of God’s judgment runs through the city and all the inhabitants repent. They call out to the Lord and turn from their evil ways. Chapter 3 ends with God relenting from the disaster because he saw how the people turned away from their evil ways.

Now you would think that this would be a great victory for Jonah. You would think that Jonah would be so excited to see the people of Nineveh turn from evil and cry out to the Lord. How exciting to see the turn around the word of the Lord caused through Jonah’s proclamation. But it was not good to Jonah. Open your copies of God’s word and read the first four verses of Jonah 4…

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In our last lesson we examined the implications of Jesus teaching us to address God as “our Father.” It conjures a beautiful picture of an intimate relationship between a child and dad. Have a conversation with God. There are not code words that must be said. We do not talk to him to be seen by others. We do not need flowery words or to be formal in our language. Just talk to God, like talking to your dad, having a discussion about our requests and desires, aligning our will to God’s will. We will now continue our study of Jesus’ teaching on prayer.

9 “Therefore, you should pray like this: Our Father in heaven, Your name be honored as holy. 10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. (Matthew 6:9-13; HCSB)

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The need to improve our prayer life. I believe all of us need the encouragement to pray more and to pray better. We may be active our prayer lives but wonder if we are doing it right. Prayer is something that we need training in, as the disciples even asked Jesus to teach them to pray. Unfortunately, the prayer life of many looks like the fire extinguisher behind the breakable glass that reads: in case of emergency. We are not regular in our prayer. We pray only in cases of emergency. So I want us to grow deeper in prayer. I believe we want deeper prayer lives. I think we are told to pray more often, but we don’t know what to do. We do not know if we are praying right. It may even feel silly to us because we are in the quiet of our room and we speaking to no one we can see…

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We are beginning a new series from the life of Jacob, called Transforming Jacob. Jacob is a fascinating person and sometimes we do not look closely at his life because it is hard to understand what he is doing. Is Jacob a good guy or a bad guy? Is he doing right or is he doing wrong? But what I really want us to see is what God is doing through Jacob. I want us to look at how God is going to transform Jacob to be the patriarch through whom will come the 12 tribes of Israel and through whom will ultimately come the Savior of the world. To understand Jacob, you need to understand his past. Genesis records how it all begins for this man named Jacob…

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