Lessons for Living (Audio)

How’s your prayer life? Do you spend time every day praying? Do you have problems with your prayers not being answered? These are things most if not all Christians ask about and struggle with. Pastor Mark is teaching about the need for you, as a Christ follower, to not only pray regularly and about everything – not just the “big” things – but to believe that God hears you and that He will give you an answer. Another challenge you’ll face when waiting for an answer is to trust God enough to accept the answer to your prayer, even if the form of the answer isn’t what you wanted or expected.

If you’re a parent, you’ve probably had to command your children to do something without giving them a big explanation. That’s hard to do sometimes but necessary – the understanding will come later. In the same way, God has given Christ followers commands, many of which you don’t understand why until after the fact. Pastor Mark is teaching about one of those commands – to pray about every thing. You have needs and concerns that are beyond your ability to solve; God wants to provide the answer to you. The only way for you to receive that answer is to communicate with God.

Living in the past can have a paralyzing effect on your life. It will keep you in fear and will foster worry. It will damage your current relationships and prevent your creating new ones. Most of all, it will stifle God’s ability to move positively in your life and pour new blessings on you. Pastor Mark is teaching what the Bible says you must do to stop worrying about your life. You’ll learn what the Bible says about worry, about what your life is and was intended to be, and how to get from where you are to where God really wants you to be. God wants to bless you and through you be a blessing to those around you.

Everyone worries, right? You do, too, don’t you? The tendency to worry is normal. But because God knows you and your inclination to worry, He has offered a remedy – trust Him with your life and He will direct your path. It’s easy to lose sight of the ultimate goal which is to live with Him in heaven for all eternity. Pastor Mark’s teaching will be reminding you of this last, best goal and how to get there. You’ll learn the difference between concern and worry, and be shown the path to trusting God. He cares about you so very much and wants you to learn to rely on Him for everything.

How much of what you worry about comes to pass? If you’re like most people, not too much of it. So why worry in the first place? It seems that that’s just the way we’re wired. Jesus knew this – that’s why He told us not to worry. He wants you to trust Him for the future, which is what can be the most concerning. Pastor Mark is teaching from the book of Philippians where the apostle Paul, who is in prison in horrible conditions, is encouraging his readers to trust God. Paul wants you to find your comfort in God’s care of you and to remember that your final destination is in heaven with Jesus.

Life is a roller coaster. Nobody has only ups or only downs, however it may feel. As you look back at your life you certainly can see really high highs as well as really low lows – ones you’d like to forget. The difference for the Christ follower, though, should be that you should sense the presence of the Holy Spirit alongside you, holding you up and giving you the strength to survive the lows and enjoy the highs. Pastor Mark is teaching the importance of letting God help you through the entirety of your life. As you do so, it shows the lost people around you that there is a way to find hope in this life.

It’s understandable if you have trouble trusting God. You might feel that you’re so insignificant – how could God care about little me? The truth of the matter, though, is that He does care about you, more than you can understand or comprehend. Pastor Mark is teaching that for you to have the joy and peace that Jesus had and that God wants you to have, you have got to begin to trust Him. In the same way that Jesus relied on the Father for guidance and encouragement, you need to learn to do the same. Spend time reading His word and praying, and then being obedient to what you hear Him say to you.

Think about your worse day. Whatever it was it was probably pretty awful. Would your response to that day be to rejoice? Probably not. And yet the apostle Paul, chained to two Roman guards twenty-four hours a day, with his life in the balance, can encourage the readers of his letter to rejoice! Pastor Mark will be teaching about how you can receive from God the ability to have the same temperament as Paul did. You’ll be told what you have to do, what you must discard from your life so that you can put on the mind of Christ. That will allow you to be the witness to the world God wants you to be.

God wants you to have unity in every area of your life – in your relationships at church and especially at home. Have you ever gone to bed angry at your spouse? Things didn’t get better the next day, did they? The Bible is specific about how to deal with conflict. Pastor Mark is sharing the words of the apostle Paul regarding the personal conflicts that inevitably arise. Covering over or letting these issues fester will only result in creating a doorway for the devil to come in and do what he does best – stealing, killing and destroying the unit that God has put together for His glory.

Forgiveness – especially when we believe that we were the wronged party – is one of the most difficult things to do. Everything in your fallen nature rises up to defend itself. Your pride gets hurt and you want to lash out, to strike back. As Christ followers, though, Pastor Mark reminds you that there’s another path you must take. Scripture shows you that your ultimate Example, Jesus, had more done to Him than you’ll ever have done to you. Moreover, He was completely innocent. His response to the evil done to Him was, “Father, forgive them – they don’t know what they’re doing.” This is the template you must follow.