Pastor Ray Bentley with insight today on our times of testing. Every child of God has a unique path that is designed by God to bring you into areas where you will be tested. He tests us to let us know what's really in our hearts or what areas need to be worked on. He does not test us so that he can find out what's in our hearts.

Some real life insights today from pastor Ray Bentley. You were never going to get to the point where you're not going to have bad thoughts or wicked thoughts, or lustful thoughts, or prideful thoughts or covetous thoughts. But Lord, what can I do? He will not condemn you for having the thought. But now take that thought captive and say, Christ.

People follow their hungers. Passion. Popularity. Pleasure. Pastor Ray Bentley says God wants us to exercise self-control. All of the normal desires that you have. They are not sinful in and of themselves. And in fact, without those desires, we couldn't function as human beings. It is when we seek to satisfy these desires outside of God's will that we get into trouble.

Pastor Ray Bentley on God's plan for our lives. God's goal for your life and mine is maturity. Too often our prayers are spent wanting to be sheltered from the very things that will bring that maturity and trustworthiness. God cannot build our character without our cooperation. If we resist him, he will chastened us into submission. If we choose to submit to him, he will accomplish his work, and that is our maturity.

With the problems of life. Sometimes when it rains, it pours. Today, pastor Ray Bentley has encouragement for each and every one of us. All of us are facing a variety of trials in our lives right this moment. But how many of us say when we are being tested? Lord, what I really desire and what I really need is wisdom.

Pastor Ray Bentley shows us how we can consider it joy when we face various trials. When you go through horror, it draws you close to him. If you are a child of God, no matter what happens to me physically, no matter what diagnosis the doctor shares, no matter what financially is taken away from me. I have learned by experience and I have passed the test.

Problems come in tangled clumps like bird's nest. Pastor Ray Bentley says untangling is the Lord's specialty. How many of us have gone out and made a bird's nest out of our lives? And we go, oh, man, I can't do anything with this. Our father is very, very good at untangling the mess and then putting the pole back in our hands to make us fishers of men and women once again spreading disease.

Pastor Ray Bentley has words of reassurance for troubling times. Our God is a God of peace. And no matter what happens in the next few years, your God will pick up the pieces. He will order your steps. He will take care of you. He will heal all your wounds. He will fill all that may be lacking in your life.

Pastor Ray Bentley says if Jesus found benefit in prayer, we all the more. Jesus prayed more than all the disciples and that was the source of his strength. But he did not just pray. His prayer moved him into action. Prayer is where he derived his strength from his relationship with the Heavenly Father, but it was also where he received direction from the father.

Pastor Ray Bentley urges us to cling to the truth no matter what. One of the things that happens when there's pressure and persecution is that people are no longer satisfied with the simple gospel, and they want something new. It blows into this church, or that church or this denomination or that movement. Everybody races around and gets really excited for a while, and then it and it's gone.