We often live and pray as if we deserve something other than the consequences of our sin. God often times does not give us what we deserve, but something far more gracious and merciful. However, our living and our praying should reflect that we know God often uses difficult circumstances to bring about our sanctification in His glory.

Do we have any traditions or things we are holding onto that are not grounded in God's word? Our hearts are deceptive and create these barriers (things from within our own hearts that defile us) and God wants us to surrender them to Him and make glorifying Him our motive behind all that we do.

We all struggle with discouragement. Let's take a look at John the Baptist's struggle with discouragement and consider how we should respond when we get discouraged by our circumstances.

Let's take look at how we should respond when we are following Jesus and it seems like everything is falling apart.

In this message we learn how we sometimes allow the enemy to gain spiritual strongholds in our lives and what we, as believers, should do to protect ourselves against and be freed from spiritual strongholds of the enemy.

Why pray?
1. It reminds me that I’m not God.
2. It helps me to see reality from God’s point of view.