Fear is “that sense of uneasiness or uncertainty that we experience in the face of perceived danger.” Fear meets us in countless ways, but not all in the same ways. Over and over again, the Psalms encourage us not to be fear-free, but to fear the Lord. People who fear the Lord above all are able to put all of their other fears in perspective.

Anger, in some form or another, is part of our lives. Some of us spend a lot of time angry at the world and others. Others of us spend most of our time being angry at ourselves. And some people have been so angry for so long that they aren’t even sure what they are angry about anymore. In Scripture, there are examples of those who pursued what we call righteous anger. These people get angry like the rest of us when they witness or experience perceived injustice, but they do something different with that anger.

Emotions are powerful. Our emotions profoundly impact the quality and condition of our lives and our relationships. Learning how to understand, process, and express our emotions is an important part of practicing the way of Jesus together. This is perhaps never more clearly revealed than in the book of Psalms. The gift of the Psalms is that they give us all language to process our emotions before the throne of heaven–revealing us to ourselves and revealing where we are in our relationship with our Heavenly Father.

Most of us would say that we love God and want to become more like Jesus. What we need, then, is to build structures of behavior for the moments when our love falters, when we are too busy, or when our lives unravel. We are all better followers of Jesus when we are committed to growing together.

Mark #4, that we practice at Seven Marks, is being in Biblical Community. In Acts 2, we read and see a beautiful picture of this: the "one another's" of scripture, dividing walls being broken down, and much more. But modern-day community seems so messy and ordinary. Yet, we would argue that an "ordinary" community can significantly impact your life.

Jesus ends the Beatitudes with, "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. " The disciples faced persecution for following Jesus. They could have run from it, but they chose to embrace it. We can do the same thing by choosing allegiance to Jesus over the things of this world, giving Him all of the glory.

Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God."  Being a peacemaker is being concerned more about living out the calling God has placed on your life as a child of God. To become peacemakers, we must first see the need for peace and where peace comes from. In other words, to give something away, we first have to possess it.

When you trust Jesus as your Lord and Savior and surrender your life to Him, He places a new heart inside you. He replaces your "heart of stone" with a "living heart," and who you are and what you do is fueled by the condition of your heart.

God demonstrates His mercy toward us while wronging Him and others, not holding it against us. Every day we have the opportunity to extend that same mercy to the world around us. When we walk around absorbed in ourselves, we dismiss the mercy God showed us. But when we adopt the lifestyle of our Savior, we won’t be able to deny showing mercy to others.

Jesus said, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be satisfied." Jesus was aware that the people sitting in front of him then and us today are searching for the things that will satisfy our souls. We can not find it in power, possessions, or popularity. We find it when we are in right relationship with God and others.