Our focus is to build a strong faith that will sustain us through any difficulty – recognizing that God is working in this life – but His ultimate goal is to bring us home to live with Him eternally.

There is ‘refreshment’ evident in forgiveness. This comes from the knowledge that we can be freed from our sins – as well as the guilt of our sins. Frequently, there are the consequences brought on by our shortfalls. How to negotiate those ‘land-mines’ is important to the believer.

Our objective for this sermon is to recognize the God of the Bible as the God who absolutely is committed to bring a blessing to His loved ones – the most prominent blessing to be forgiveness.

Our objective for this sermon is to examine our own lives to determine who sits at the table prepared for us.

When we speak of wisdom, James, the half-brother of our Lord, knew not only of the necessity of faith in our prayers – but also ‘indicators’ of success in our attempts to gain wisdom. Jesus emphasized the blessing belonging to ‘peace-makers’ in the Sermon on the Mount. What does that mean? We will look at what two great apostles thought of the challenge of ‘making peace.’

As we consider the presence of God in our lives, we must wrestle with what that actually means to us as Christians. Does it mean God takes over our lives and manipulates events around us in such a way that health and prosperity are inevitable? Does it mean God doesn’t speak at all other than through the Bible? If so, what does the Bible say? Let’s look a little more carefully.

We are looking at the love of God – and understanding that our interpretation of His love may not be the same as God’s. There is such a thing as ‘tough love,’ so why does God answer our prayers? We are looking at four reasons today. For those that already know why – we need to be reminded.

The disciples wanted to learn how to pray, which means they must have been impressed with either the majesty of God – or the splendid example Jesus gave of praying. I do wish I could hear more of Jesus’ prayers. But then, what I do have are the instructions for my prayers. We are told to pray in a certain way. But what does that mean? We’ll explore that. Let’s grow in prayer.