Ken Crawford

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?
— Matthew 6:25

Disasters are not going to stop happening. We all can be assured that, as we go down life’s road, we will face storms—storms that bring pain and loss; storms that leave aching hearts, broken lives, and shattered hopes in their wake; storms that turn our brightest dreams into our worst nightmares. 

These difficult events remind us that we are small and vulnerable compared with the unpredictable and uncontrollable forces of nature. They remind us of the brevity of life and the urgency of making sure that we’re ready to stand before God at a moment’s notice. 

We need to focus not on what can be torn down by the storms of life but on what stands for eternity—the image of the Cross that reaches across the centuries and down through the ages to this present time, reminding us of God’s love for all mankind. 

This is the love described in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

God loves you so much that He wants you to spend eternity with Him in Heaven. That is the reason Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came into the world—to take away our sins. He did this by taking upon Himself the punishment you and I deserve through His death on the Cross. But Jesus didn’t stay on the Cross. God raised Him from the dead, and His resurrection gives us hope—hope for this life, and hope beyond the grave.

The love of God is stronger than sin—stronger than death itself—and stronger than any storm you will ever face. 

The question each of us must answer is this: What is my life’s foundation?

Father in Heaven, protect and comfort people caught up in the storms of life and bring them to the light and truth of your love and salvation. Amen

Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others — ignoring God! — harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life.
– Galatians 6:7-8 MESSAGE

While we must commit to following Jesus as Lord, the power to bring growth in us comes from the Holy Spirit. Real life, the life that grows and matures and reproduces itself, is the work of God’s Spirit going on inside us. The Spirit produces God’s fruit in us and brings in God’s ultimate harvest: “real life, eternal life.” This growth work comes from the Spirit!

Father, I love you and want to honor you with righteous character and holy compassion in my life. Yet I confess, the more I try to produce this character and compassion on my own — without depending on your strength, your word, and your Spirit — the more I fail. I find myself prideful of my accomplishments or resentful of others and their accomplishments, or I just simply fall back into my sinful and addictive behaviors. So I offer my heart, my body, and my mind to love you, and I offer myself as a living sacrifice. As I do this, I ask that you fill me with your Holy Spirit and empower and guide me by your Holy Spirit, who brings true life. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.

Listen to advice and accept instruction and in the end you will be wise. Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.
– Proverbs 19:20-21 (NIV)

“Man proposes, heaven disposes.” Most of us rush to give advice and make grandiose plans. The wise man reminds us that wisdom comes from submitting to instruction for a significant period of time and then, only at the end of long listening does it come. If you are like me, you would do much better to let your plans ripen a bit more in the light of the Lord before you launch into them. I am comforted that James, the wisdom writer of the New Testament, reminds us that God will give that wisdom if we seek it and not doubt. But while we pray for wisdom, let’s pray also for patience to listen to the Lord’s truth in Scripture so we may recognize wisdom when it comes. Patience comes by trial and testing… expect to grow when you pray like this!

Almighty God, teach me your ways and help me discern your paths for my life. I have so many plans and schemes, but I know if they are not from you, they will not stand. Lead me to your wisdom and I will not only seek to know it, but also seek to live it by the power supplied by your Holy Spirit. Make me into your holy image of what you desire from my life and ministry. Invade my very existence with your Holy Spirit. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

It is the Lord your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him.
– Deuteronomy 13:4 (NIV)

So many people want us to follow their lead and obey their voice. Only God alone has proved himself faithful and loving through the ages. In his might he is to be revered. But rather than seeing reverence as a “church thing,” we are reminded by Moses it is a “life thing.” We are to obey and keep his commandments, we are to serve him and depend upon him in our daily lives. Rather than silence in the assembly, reverence is action to his glory!

Holy and Righteous Father, help me take my worship outside the church building into my day to day life as I try to live what I sing, practice what I say, and pursue what I pray. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

For we who worship by the Spirit of God are the ones who are truly circumcised. We rely on what Christ Jesus has done for us. We put no confidence in human effort…
– Philippians 3:3 NLT

Our identity as God’s children is defined by the presence of the Holy Spirit as we worship, not by our race or by a physical mark on our body. Those who have the Spirit are the children of God (John 3:3-7). We rely on the work of Christ and don’t rely on our human attempts at significance. Christ poured the Spirit on us when we were saved by grace (Titus 3:3-7). The Holy Spirit is the mark of our identity (Rom. 8:9). The Work of the Spirit makes us a part of the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12-13). The gift of the Holy Spirit is our gateway to authentic worship (John 4:22-23). The presence of the Holy Spirit makes us the dwelling place of God, a holy temple in which God lives through the Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). The presence of the Holy Spirit defines our lives in Christ and is crucial to our identity and worship! Rather than our lives and worship being tied down by all sorts of detailed rules about worship like we find in the Torah and other hard and fast rules of human order, we are set free by the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Father in heaven, please forgive me when I try to define my significance in any other source other than your gracious love for me, your Son’s sacrifice for my sins, and the work of the Holy Spirit in my day-to-day life. I ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen

O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
– Psalm 63:1 (NIV)

Addiction has been defined as “God-hunger directed to the wrong source of soul satisfaction.” Psalm 63 reminds us this is true. Deep in us is a desire to seek after God because he is not far from us and longs to be known by us (see Acts 17). But often when our soul craving need for God is greatest, he is the last place we turn for satisfaction. Let’s earnestly seek after him and slake our soul thirstiness in him.

Holy Father, fill my heart with longing for you and my head with understanding that it is your presence I crave. I confess that I have often sought relief for my hunger in things that do not satisfy. I pledge today to recognize all other sources of satisfaction to be temporary and false. I promise to pursue you and your will through your word and your Spirit till I rest in your presence and grace. In the powerful name of Jesus my Lord, I pray. Amen.

“Repentance is a change of willing,
of feeling and of living,
in respect to God.”
– Charles Finney

Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord is the Rock Eternal.
Isaiah 26:4 (NIV)

When we see mountains we feel small, knowing not only how much larger it is than we are, but also how much longer it has been here than we have been. But the Lord was long before any mountain and will be long after it has melted into nothing. He is the only rock of security and stability. All the forevers we have are found in him.

Eternal Father, who is and was and will be forever, I find comfort in the trust that you are and will always be my God, my Redeemer, my Savior, my Shepherd, and my Father. I commit all my tomorrows to you. In the name of Jesus my Lord I pray. Amen.

The Serenity Prayer is a prayer that asks God to grant acceptance, courage, and wisdom for things in our life we can’t control. This prayer is one of the most well-known today, especially the shortened version below. 

Written by Reinhold Neibuhr in the 1930s, this prayer has been widely used in sermons, Sunday school groups, and studies. In the early 1940s, the group Alcoholics Anonymous began to use a shortened version of the Serenity Prayer in their twelve-step program. 

How often have you seen The Serenity Prayer on a card or on a magnet and simply read the inspirational words without fully grasping its message? It’s a powerful prayer, and we truly need to believe in each phrase for its wisdom to enhance our lives. Be inspired to live with serenity through faith in Christ with these Bible verses about giving God our anxieties.

God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
As it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
If I surrender to His Will;
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life
And supremely happy with Him
Forever and ever in the next.
Amen.

Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
— 1 Peter 1:8-9

Can you trust what you don’t see? Of course! What kind of question is that? Our lives depend on what we cannot see — things like gravity and the air we breathe, just to name two. Faith in Jesus is as natural as faith in each of those things. The problem is that our hearts are skeptical. We find it hard to believe that anyone divine would love us so much. Our experience says, “If it seems too good to be true, it is.” That skepticism is just the twisted form of the response God longs to see from us: “inexpressible and glorious joy.” I don’t know about you, but I’ve tasted both. I prefer joy over skepticism!

What joy fills my heart, Father, when I anticipate what it will be like to be in your presence — to have you wipe each tear from my eyes and to have you introduce me again to those I love and to those I’ve only known by reputation. Please never let me outlive that sense of anticipation and never let that hope dim in my heart, no matter what else may happen in my life here. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.