From our teen years continuing up to old age, we fret and worry about trying to get those around us to like us. Our Savior's love sets us free from "people-pleasing" so that we can be "God-pleasers."

While perfectionists may have higher standards than others, all of us have standards and goals for ourselves and for others. Because of this, all of us also understand failure. We know what's it's like to fail in disciplining ourselves according to our own personal standards and God's. Through Christ, however, we have been declared perfect to the only eyes that matter: God's.

So much of our thought life is filled with the heaviness of life. King David replaces this meditation of the heart with an acceptable meditation of the heart on God, our Rock and Redeemer.

Typically when a person says, "You think the world revolves around you," it's never a good thing. However today as we consider the account of creation we see that the world was created for mankind. God had and still has a desire to be with us. It is what caused the creation of this world and it is what caused him to restore our relationship with him (the image of God) when it was destroyed.

I will pour out my Spirit. God’s Old Testament people celebrated the gathering of the harvest at the Festival of Weeks. On the fiftieth day, God sent the promised Counselor on the day we call “Pentecost” (Greek for “fifty” from the LXX in Lev 23:15: ). This day marked the birthday of the New Testament Church and celebrates the harvest of souls won by the Son and gathered by his servants empowered by his Spirit. Pentecost is the third great festival of the Church and has been commemorated since at least 217 A.D. The Church dresses in red to remind us of the tongues of fire that marked the Spirit’s gift and the blood of the martyrs which was the seed of the Church. This day culminates the Season of Easter when our risen Lord now empowers his people to be witnesses of the resurrection for the world.

What brings more doubt into our lives than grief or sorrow? Peter points us to the resurrection as proof of the living hope we have regardless of our outward circumstances.