Knowing God means you don't have to know despair.

It's no secret that as humans we all want something. But what may be less apparent, is that at the end of the day, we really all want the same thing. That thing. The ability to "not want"--in other words we all want contentment. Is there a way to really find true contentment in this life amidst all of our other wants? If we're ever going to true rest it's not going to be as a result of our work, but God's.

The most repeated command in the Bible to us is to "Fear not". We all know that just because something is repeated, it doesn't necessarily make it any more real for us. God, offers us two reasons why we shouldn't fear. His presence and His provision. What knowing God means is that we don't have to know fear.

We tend to live our lives for the avoidance of pain. Because we think that suffering tends to stand in the way of our joy we find ourselves constantly longing for things that will make our lives easier and more enjoyable. While this pathway seems like the one that will lead us to joy, Jesus walks a different path. He shows us that suffering doesn't stand in the way of our joy, it is the actual pathway to joy.

Jesus isn't looking for arguments for your worthiness, He's looking for your admission of weakness.

We've all had cases of mistaken identity before. Usually, the outcome is either embarrassment or inconvenience. With Jesus, however, a case mistaken identity can be tragic. Jesus is more than a man, He is your Savior and goes to great lengths to help us see this life-changing truth.

Jesus' miracles aren't merely acts of power, but signs that highlight aspects of His character. Jesus heals a blind man in Mark 8 to show us that even though God opens blind eyes completely, He does so gradually. Jesus is a patient Savior, and that's good news for those of us who are never as far along as we think we are.

God not only sees our fatigue and hardship but he can identify with it and he responds to it with grace and mercy. The main idea of this text is providing Christians with at least 3 reasons why we can endure the race of faith till the end.

Jesus offers much more than just a remedy for our problems, He offers us a relationship. While that's great news for the man in Mark 7 that can't hear, it's better news to those of who won't listen.

Religion (as a system of trying to gain peace with God by our works) looks like it protects the truth, but it only really perverts it. It doesn't fix old problems, it merely creates new ones. This happens because religion addresses the symptoms of our problems instead of the source. In Mark 7, we see that Jesus cleans up what religious systems can only call out.